A Novel Electronic Voting Mechanism Based on Blockchain Technology

Abstract

With the development of networking technology, it has become common to use various types of network services to replace physical ones. Among all such services, electronic voting is one example that tends to be popularized in many countries. However, due to certain concerns regarding information security, traditional paper voting mechanisms are still widely adopted in large-scale elections. This study utilizes blockchain technology to design a novel electronic voting mechanism. Relying on the transparency, decentralization, and verifiability of the blockchain, it becomes possible to remove the reliance on trusted third parties and also to enhance the level of trust of voters in the mechanism. Besides, the mechanism of blind signature with its complexity as difficult as solving an elliptic curve discrete logarithmic problem is adopted to strengthen the features related to the security of electronic voting. Last but not least, the mechanism of self-certification is incorporated to substitute the centralized certificate authority. Therefore, the voters can generate the public/private keys by themselves to mitigate the possible risks of impersonation by the certificate authority (i.e., a trusted third party). The BAN logic analysis and the investigation for several key security features are conducted to verify that such a design is sufficiently secure. Since it is expected to raise the level of trust of voters in electronic voting, extra costs for re-verifying the results due to distrust will therefore be reduced.