Transparency in eVoting: Lessons learnt

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to present and discuss some core issues regarding the transparency of the eVoting process. Apart from the protection of voting secrecy, the possible manipulation of votes, even of the entire election, is one of the key issues in eVoting. Comparatively few Supreme Court rulings are available for eVoting, as it is a new field. Where there are rulings available, they often focus on the case at hand and do not derive general principles. On 3 March 2009, the German Constitutional Court published a ruling on the use of voting terminals[1] from which also general principles can be derived far beyond the case itself.

Design/methodology/approach

Apart from the protection of voting secrecy, the possible manipulation of votes, even of the entire election, is one of the key issues in eVoting. Comparatively few Supreme Court rulings are available for eVoting, as it is a new field. Where there are rulings available, they often focus on the case at hand and do not derive general principles. On 3 March 2009, the German Constitutional Court published a ruling on the use of voting terminals[1] from which general principles can also be derived far beyond the case itself.

Findings

The paper presented some core issues in eVoting transparency as required by the ruling of the German Constitutional Court. In particular, it suggested a way to define and operationalise the terms “audit chain”, “count” and “recount”, which arguably represent the core issues in eVoting transparency and auditability. Furthermore, the paper introduced a model to map the key security dimensions in an eVoting system and the degree to which they are fulfilled by technical, not just organisational, means, with auditability being the dimension discussed in this contribution.

Research limitations/implications

The paper only considers political elections and starts off the framework and requirements set by the German Constitutional Court. With one exception, these requirements can be seen as rather generic for most Western-style democracies, the exception being observability and auditability of the election by the general public.

Practical implications

The paper derives concrete design principles for remote eVoting systems.

Originality/value

The paper develops a security framework for remote eVoting from given legal requirements. After an analysis of popular existing eVoting protocols, a generic eVoting protocol is derived satisfying these requirements.

Citation

Prosser, A. (2014), "Transparency in eVoting: Lessons learnt", Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 171-184. https://doi.org/10.1108/TG-09-2013-0032