Simple and efficient hash-based verifiable mixing for remote electronic voting

摘要

Remote voting permits an election to be carried out through telecommunication networks. In this way, its participants are not required to physically move to the polling place. Votes are automatically collected and counted so that once the election ends, the results can be published after a very short delay. Security is a key aspect of any remote application. A remote voting system must be secure in the sense that the result of the election cannot be manipulated and the privacy of participants is preserved. This paper presents a novel mix-type remote voting system that permits to verify the correctness of a voting process without requiring complex and costly zero-knowledge proofs. It is based on a very efficient and lightweight hash-based construction that makes use of the homomorphic properties of ElGamal cryptosystem.