Veto in Yes-no and Yes-no-Abstain Voting Systems

Voting is a formal expression of opinion or choice, either positive or negative, made by an individual or a group of individuals. However, conventional voting systems tend to be centralized, which are known to suffer from security and efficiency limitations. Hence, there has been a trend of moving to decentralized voting systems, such as those based on blockchain. The latter is a decentralized digital ledger in a peer-to-peer network, where a copy of the append-only ledger of digitally signed and encrypted transactions is maintained by each participant. Therefore, in this article, we perform a comprehensive review of blockchain-based voting systems and classify them based on a number of features (e.g., the types of blockchain used, the consensus approaches used, and the scale of participants). By systematically analyzing and comparing the different blockchain-based voting systems, we also identify a number of limitations and research opportunities. Hopefully, this survey will provide an in-depth insight into the potential utility of blockchain in voting systems and device future research agenda.

Download Full-text

Anomaly Detection in Electronic Voting Systems

Information Design Journal ◽

10.1075/idj.20.3.01gil ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 20 (3) ◽

pp. 194-206

Author(s):

Juan Gilbert ◽

Jerone Dunbar ◽

Alvitta Ottley ◽

John Mark Smotherman

Keyword(s):

Anomaly Detection ◽

Electronic Voting ◽

Voting Systems

Download Full-text

Temporary Workers and Direct Voting Systems for Workers’ Representation

Economic and Industrial Democracy ◽

10.1177/0143831x06065966 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 27 (3) ◽

pp. 505-535 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Miguel A. Malo

Keyword(s):

Temporary Workers ◽

Voting Systems

Download Full-text

Voting Systems, Honest Preferences and Pareto Optimality

American Political Science Review ◽

10.2307/1958635 ◽

1973 ◽

Vol 67 (3) ◽

pp. 934-946 ◽

Cited By ~ 38

Author(s):

Richard Zeckhauser

Keyword(s):

Social Choice ◽

Pareto Optimality ◽

The Political ◽

Voting Systems ◽

Political Arena ◽

Decentralized System ◽

Economic Decisions

The market is a decentralized system that can bring about efficient economic decisions. This paper examines whether social choice mechanisms can duplicate this success in the political arena. The famed Arrow result tells us centralized systems cannot achieve efficient, nondictatorial outcomes unless they rely on cardinal preferences. With decentralization, efficiency comes to require something more: the truthful revelation of preferences. Schemes that elicit honest preferences are derived here. By their very structure they are shown to lead to inefficient outcomes. This negative result leads to the question whether the validity of the initial analogy continues. Market-based standards of performance may be innappropriate for investigations of political phenomena.

Download Full-text

On the notion of ‘software independence’ in voting systems

Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society A Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences ◽

10.1098/rsta.2008.0149 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 366 (1881) ◽

pp. 3759-3767 ◽

Cited By ~ 26

Author(s):

Ronald L Rivest

Keyword(s):

Election Outcome ◽

Voting Systems ◽

Optical Scan ◽

Guidelines Development ◽

The Usa ◽

Voting System ◽

Development Committee ◽

To Receive

This paper defines and explores the notion of ‘software independence’ in voting systems: ‘A voting system is software independent if an (undetected) change or error in its software cannot cause an undetectable change or error in an election outcome’. For example, optical scan and some cryptographically based voting systems are software independent. Variations and implications of this definition are explored. It is proposed that software-independent voting systems should be preferred, and software-dependent voting systems should be avoided. An initial version of this paper was prepared for use by the Technical Guidelines Development Committee in their development of the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines, which will specify the requirements that the USA voting systems must meet to receive certification.

Download Full-text