scholarly journals Secure Online E-voting Protocol Based on Voters Authentication

Although there are many e-voting systems present by analysis it is found that they all are vulnerable to privacy risk and weakness of unreliable protocols and denial of service attacks. Here is the need to implement the public key encryption e-voting system. The primary objective of this system is to make ensure reliability, privacy and security of the protocol and voting is convenience to users. As a result of the specification requirements, the system was summarized into three parts: access control process which limit access to a system or to any other resource. Secondly, voting process was done by encrypting voter's electronic ballot before submitting to the server. Finally, the final result was sorted through deciphering the received encrypted information. The System is more efficient than other E-Voting systems, since voters can vote from their devices without extra cost and effort, and encryption ensures the security. A pseudo random number is generated using the OTP principle, is used by the voter for authentication purpose while casting the vote. These techniques provide a secure platform, thus exceeding vulnerabilities of the traditional voting system.

Author(s):  
Yurong Yao ◽  
Edward Watson

Electronic voting has become a viable form of e-government due to the rapid advances in technologies and communication networks. The United States and most European and Asian Countries, like Japan, have taken the first step towards electronic elections. The unique features of electronic voting systems bring advantages to the public as well as resulting in concerns about electronic voting system (EVS) implementation. In this chapter, we examine those advantages of EVS and the principal obstacles in its implementation: privacy, security and accessibility. By investigating the current technology and government efforts to overcome these problems, some recommendations are proposed to gain voters’ trust on EVS and further increase their participation by using EVS.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (21) ◽  
pp. 7606
Author(s):  
Stanisław Barański ◽  
Julian Szymański ◽  
Andrzej Sobecki ◽  
David Gil ◽  
Higinio Mora

In this paper, we propose a privacy-preserving i-voting system based on the public Stellar Blockchain network. We argue that the proposed system satisfies all requirements stated for a robust i-voting system including transparency, verifiability, and voter anonymity. The practical architecture of the system abstracts a voter from blockchain technology used underneath. To keep user privacy, we propose a privacy-first protocol that protects voter anonymity. Additionally, high throughput and low transaction fees allow handling large scale voting at low costs. As a result we built an open-source, cheap, and secure system for i-voting that uses public blockchain, where everyone can participate and verify the election process without the need to trust a central authority. The main contribution to the field is a method based on a blind signature used to construct reliable voting protocol. The proposed method fulfills all requirements defined for i-voting systems, which is challenging to achieve altogether.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sunoo Park ◽  
Michael Specter ◽  
Neha Narula ◽  
Ronald L Rivest

Abstract Voters are understandably concerned about election security. News reports of possible election interference by foreign powers, of unauthorized voting, of voter disenfranchisement, and of technological failures call into question the integrity of elections worldwide. This article examines the suggestions that “voting over the Internet” or “voting on the blockchain” would increase election security, and finds such claims to be wanting and misleading. While current election systems are far from perfect, Internet- and blockchain-based voting would greatly increase the risk of undetectable, nation-scale election failures. Online voting may seem appealing: voting from a computer or smartphone may seem convenient and accessible. However, studies have been inconclusive, showing that online voting may have little to no effect on turnout in practice, and it may even increase disenfranchisement. More importantly, given the current state of computer security, any turnout increase derived from Internet- or blockchain-based voting would come at the cost of losing meaningful assurance that votes have been counted as they were cast, and not undetectably altered or discarded. This state of affairs will continue as long as standard tactics such as malware, zero day, and denial-of-service attacks continue to be effective. This article analyzes and systematizes prior research on the security risks of online and electronic voting, and shows that not only do these risks persist in blockchain-based voting systems, but blockchains may introduce ‘additional’ problems for voting systems. Finally, we suggest questions for critically assessing security risks of new voting system proposals.


2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-116
Author(s):  
Aggelos Kiayias ◽  
Thomas Zacharias ◽  
Bingsheng Zhang

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the importance of auditing for election privacy via issues that appear in the state-of-the-art implementations of e-voting systems that apply threshold public key encryption (TPKE) in the client such as Helios and use a bulletin board (BB). Design/methodology/approach Argumentation builds upon a formal description of a typical TPKE-based e-voting system where the election authority (EA) is the central node in a star network topology. The paper points out the weaknesses of the said topology with respect to privacy and analyzes how these weaknesses affect the security of several instances of TPKE-based e-voting systems. Overall, it studies the importance of auditing from a privacy aspect. Findings The paper shows that without public key infrastructure (PKI) support or – more generally – authenticated BB “append” operations, TPKE-based e-voting systems are vulnerable to attacks where the malicious EA can act as a man-in-the-middle between the election trustees and the voters; hence, it can learn how the voters have voted. As a countermeasure for such attacks, this work suggests compulsory trustee auditing. Furthermore, it analyzes how lack of cryptographic proof verification affects the level of privacy that can be provably guaranteed in a typical TPKE e-voting system. Originality/value As opposed to the extensively studied importance of auditing to ensure election integrity, the necessity of auditing to protect privacy in an e-voting system has been mostly overlooked. This paper reveals design weaknesses present in noticeable TPKE-based e-voting systems that can lead to a total breach of voters’ privacy and shows how auditing can be applied for providing strong provable privacy guarantees.


2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (8) ◽  
pp. 1237-1251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xinxin Jiang

This article critically examines the blind audition and the voting system in The Voice of China to understand how the singing competition show narrates the most contemporary political, social, and cultural ideology of the Chinese society in the discourse of globalization. The article starts with an overview and some highlights of the show. Then this article explores how the blind audition serves as the venue for the ordinary Chinese viewers to engage with an illusion of fairness in a society. Next, this article investigates how the re-creation of the voting mechanism in the show symbolizes the fantasy of democracy and how it negotiates the power between the public and the state. I conclude with the argument that societal discourses on the blind audition and voting systems on a singing competition show reveal growing public awareness of and concern with issues of equity and fairness in the cultural arena of traditional esthetic standards as well as the societal arena of electoral politics.


2018 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 266-273
Author(s):  
Ivan S. Palitai

The article is devoted to the modern Russian party system. In the first part of the article, the author shows the historical features of the parties formation in Russia and analyzes the reasons for the low turnout in the elections to the State Duma in 2016. According to the author the institutional reasons consist in the fact that the majority of modern political parties show less and less ability to produce new ideas, and the search for meanings is conducted on the basis of the existing, previously proposed sets of options. Parties reduce the topic of self-identification in party rhetoric, narrowing it down to “branded” ideas or focusing on the image of the leader. In addition, the author shows the decrease in the overall political activity of citizens after the 2011 elections, and points out that the legislation amendments led to the reduction of the election campaigns duration and changes in the voting system itself. The second part of the article is devoted to the study of the psychological aspects of the party system. The author presents the results of the investigation of images of the parties as well as the results of the population opinion polls, held by the centers of public opinion study. On the basis of this data, the author concludes that according to the public opinion the modern party system is ineffective, and the parties don’t have real political weight, which leads to the decrease of the interest in their activities and confidence in them. The author supposes that all this may be the consequence of the people’s fatigue from the same persons in politics, but at the same time the electorate’s desire to see new participants in political processes is formulated rather vaguely, since, according to the people, this might not bring any positive changes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 3497
Author(s):  
Hassan Adamu ◽  
Syaheerah Lebai Lutfi ◽  
Nurul Hashimah Ahamed Hassain Malim ◽  
Rohail Hassan ◽  
Assunta Di Vaio ◽  
...  

Sustainable development plays a vital role in information and communication technology. In times of pandemics such as COVID-19, vulnerable people need help to survive. This help includes the distribution of relief packages and materials by the government with the primary objective of lessening the economic and psychological effects on the citizens affected by disasters such as the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there has not been an efficient way to monitor public funds’ accountability and transparency, especially in developing countries such as Nigeria. The understanding of public emotions by the government on distributed palliatives is important as it would indicate the reach and impact of the distribution exercise. Although several studies on English emotion classification have been conducted, these studies are not portable to a wider inclusive Nigerian case. This is because Informal Nigerian English (Pidgin), which Nigerians widely speak, has quite a different vocabulary from Standard English, thus limiting the applicability of the emotion classification of Standard English machine learning models. An Informal Nigerian English (Pidgin English) emotions dataset is constructed, pre-processed, and annotated. The dataset is then used to classify five emotion classes (anger, sadness, joy, fear, and disgust) on the COVID-19 palliatives and relief aid distribution in Nigeria using standard machine learning (ML) algorithms. Six ML algorithms are used in this study, and a comparative analysis of their performance is conducted. The algorithms are Multinomial Naïve Bayes (MNB), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forest (RF), Logistics Regression (LR), K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN), and Decision Tree (DT). The conducted experiments reveal that Support Vector Machine outperforms the remaining classifiers with the highest accuracy of 88%. The “disgust” emotion class surpassed other emotion classes, i.e., sadness, joy, fear, and anger, with the highest number of counts from the classification conducted on the constructed dataset. Additionally, the conducted correlation analysis shows a significant relationship between the emotion classes of “Joy” and “Fear”, which implies that the public is excited about the palliatives’ distribution but afraid of inequality and transparency in the distribution process due to reasons such as corruption. Conclusively, the results from this experiment clearly show that the public emotions on COVID-19 support and relief aid packages’ distribution in Nigeria were not satisfactory, considering that the negative emotions from the public outnumbered the public happiness.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul M. Garrett ◽  
Yuwen Wang ◽  
Joshua P. White ◽  
Yoshihisa Kashima ◽  
Simon Dennis ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND Governments worldwide have introduced COVID-19 tracing technologies. Taiwan, a world leader in controlling the virus’ spread, has introduced the Taiwan ‘Social Distancing App’ to facilitate COVID-19 contact tracing. However, for these technologies to be effective, they must be accepted and used by the public. OBJECTIVE Our study aimed to determine public acceptance for three hypothetical tracing technologies: a centralized Government App, a decentralized Bluetooth App (e.g., Taiwan’s Social Distancing App), and a Telecommunication tracing technology; and model what factors contributed to their acceptance. METHODS Four nationally representative surveys were conducted in April 2020 sampling 6,000 Taiwanese residents. Perceptions and impacts of COVID-19, government effectiveness, worldviews, and attitudes towards and acceptance of one-of-three hypothetical tracing technologies were assessed. RESULTS Technology acceptance was high across all hypothetical technologies (67% - 73%) and improved with additional privacy measures (82% - 88%). Bayesian modelling (using 95% highest density credible intervals) showed data sensitivity and perceived poor COVID-19 policy compliance inhibited technology acceptance. By contrast, technology benefits (e.g., returning to activities, reducing virus spread, lowering the likelihood of infection), higher education, and perceived technology privacy, security, and trust, were all contributing factors to overall acceptance. Bayesian ordinal probit models revealed higher COVID-19 concern for other people than for one’s self. CONCLUSIONS Taiwan is currently using a range of technologies to minimize the spread of COVID-19 as the country returns to normal economic and social activities. We observed high acceptance for COVID-19 tracing technologies among the Taiwanese public, a promising and necessary finding for the successful introduction of Taiwan’s new ‘Social Distancing App’. Policy makers may capitalize on this acceptance by focusing attention towards the App’s benefits, privacy and security measures, making the App’s privacy measures transparent to the public, and emphasizing App uptake and compliance among the public. CLINICALTRIAL Not applicable.


Author(s):  
Lucía CASADO CASADO

LABURPENA: Ekonomiako Lankidetza eta Garapenerako Erakundeak eta Europar Batasunak bultzatutako erregulazioa hobetzeko politika gero eta gehiago garatu da Espainian eta 2015ean bultzada esanguratsua jaso du, urriaren 1eko 39/2015 Legea, Herri Administrazioen Administrazio Prozedura Erkideari buruzkoa, onartuta. Lege horrek titulu berria dakar —VI.a— legegintza-ekinbidea eta erregelamenduak eta bestelako xedapenak emateko ahalmena arautzeko. Bertan, legegintza-ekinbidea eta lege mailako arauak egiteko ahala erabiltzeari, erregelamenduak egiteko ahala erabiltzeari, erregulazio onaren printzipioei, araudiaren ebaluazioari, arauen publizitateari, arauen plangintzari eta herritarrek lege mailako arauak eta erregelamenduak egiteko prozeduran parte hartzeari buruzko xedapen batzuk jasotzen dira. Lan horrek arlo horretan 39/2015 Legeak sartutako berritasunak aztertzen ditu, tokiko ikuspegitik, haren xedapenak administrazio publiko guztiei eta, beraz, toki-administrazioei ere, aplikatzen baitzaizkie. Helburu nagusia Legeak tokiko arauak egiteko ahalean daukan eragina aztertzea eta, ondorioz, arlo horretan tokiko eremuan sartzen diren berritasun nagusiak zehaztea da, haren aplikazioak ekar ditzakeen erronka, arazo eta zalantza batzuk ikusteko eta balizko irtenbideak emateko. RESUMEN: La política de mejora de la regulación, impulsada por la Organización para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Económico y por la Unión Europea, se ha desarrollado en España de forma reciente y ha recibido un impulso significativo en 2015, con la aprobación de la Ley 39/2015, de 1 de octubre, del procedimiento administrativo común de las administraciones públicas. Esta Ley incluye un nuevo Título —el VI—, destinado a regular la iniciativa legislativa y la potestad para dictar reglamentos y otras disposiciones. En él se recogen algunas previsiones sobre el ejercicio de la iniciativa legislativa y la potestad para dictar normas con rango de ley, el ejercicio de la potestad reglamentaria, los principios de buena regulación, la evaluación normativa, la publicidad de las normas, la planificación normativa y la participación de los ciudadanos en el procedimiento de elaboración de normas con rango de ley y reglamentos. Este trabajo se centra en el análisis de las novedades incorporadas en esta materia por la citada Ley 39/2015 desde una perspectiva local, dada la aplicación de sus previsiones a todas las administraciones públicas y, por consiguiente, también a las administraciones locales. El objetivo primordial es analizar la incidencia de esta Ley sobre la potestad normativa local y, en consecuencia, determinar las principales novedades que se incorporan en esta materia en el ámbito local, con el fin de apuntar algunos retos, problemas e incertidumbres que su aplicación puede suscitar y aportar posibles soluciones. ABSTRACT: Policies to improve regulation promoted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the European Union have recently been applied in Spain and in 2015 received a significant boost with the passing of Law 39/2015, of 1 October, on common administrative procedure for the public administrations. This Law includes a new Section (VI) which regulates legislative initiative and the power to create regulations and other provisions. The law contains provisions regarding the execution of legislative initiative and the power to create regulations with the force of laws, the exercising of regulatory power, the principles of good regulation, regulatory evaluation, regulatory publicity, regulatory planning and the participation of citizens in the process of creating legislation with the force of laws and regulations. The present study analyses the changes made to local regulatory powers by the aforementioned Law 39/2015, given that its provisions are applicable to all public administrations and, therefore, also to the local administrations. The primary objective is to analyse the effect of this Law on local regulatory powers and, therefore, to determine the principle new changes that have been made to local regulatory powers, with the aim of identifying the challenges, problems and uncertainties that may arise through the application of the Law and to propose possible solutions.


Author(s):  
Ronald L Rivest

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.


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