ON THE PRIVACY THREATS OF ELECTRONIC POLL BOOKS

Stefan Popoveniuc, John Kelsey, Eugen Leontie

2011

Abstract

Electronic poll books can rapidly check the eligibility of a voter due to their ability to quickly search lists. However, they also introduce a factor of concern: if the electronic poll book records the order of sign-ins and the voting machine or optical scanner records the order in which the voters cast their ballots, ballot secrecy can be compromised. Worse, if the time at which each voter signs-in and the time at which each ballot is cast are recorded, ballot secrecy is lost. It is surprisingly difficult to avoid saving such timing information, for example in event logs, and even more difficult to verify that no such information is saved. In addition, due to operational complexities, even the more efficient electronic poll books can act as a bottleneck in the voting process. We propose a simple technique to address these concerns, by allowing voters to sign-in from home, and print out a bar-coded ticket to be presented at the check-in table. Using blind signatures, this ticket need not reveal information on the voter’s identity to the check-in table at the precinct. The ticket proves than the voter is authorized to vote on a particular ballot style without disclosing her identity.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Popoveniuc S., Kelsey J. and Leontie E. (2011). ON THE PRIVACY THREATS OF ELECTRONIC POLL BOOKS . In Proceedings of the International Conference on Security and Cryptography - Volume 1: SECRYPT, (ICETE 2011) ISBN 978-989-8425-71-3, pages 281-286. DOI: 10.5220/0003520202810286

in Bibtex Style

@conference{secrypt11,
author={Stefan Popoveniuc and John Kelsey and Eugen Leontie},
title={ON THE PRIVACY THREATS OF ELECTRONIC POLL BOOKS},
booktitle={Proceedings of the International Conference on Security and Cryptography - Volume 1: SECRYPT, (ICETE 2011)},
year={2011},
pages={281-286},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0003520202810286},
isbn={978-989-8425-71-3},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the International Conference on Security and Cryptography - Volume 1: SECRYPT, (ICETE 2011)
TI - ON THE PRIVACY THREATS OF ELECTRONIC POLL BOOKS
SN - 978-989-8425-71-3
AU - Popoveniuc S.
AU - Kelsey J.
AU - Leontie E.
PY - 2011
SP - 281
EP - 286
DO - 10.5220/0003520202810286