Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Coercion-Resistant Electronic Elections

  • Chapter
Towards Trustworthy Elections

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 6000))

Abstract

We introduce a model for electronic election schemes that involves a more powerful adversary than previous work. In particular, we allow the adversary to demand of coerced voters that they vote in a particular manner, abstain from voting, or even disclose their secret keys. We define a scheme to be coercion-resistant if it is infeasible for the adversary to determine whether a coerced voter complies with the demands.

A first contribution of this paper is to describe and characterize this newly strengthened adversary. In doing so, we additionally present what we believe to be the first formal security definitions for electronic elections of any type. A second contribution is a protocol that is provably secure against our formalized adversary. While strong attack model are of theoretical interest, we emphasize that our results lie close to practicality in two senses: We model real-life threats (such as vote-buying), and our proposed protocol combines a fair degree of efficiency with low structural complexity. While previous schemes have required an untappable channel, ours has the more practical requirement of an anonymous channel.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Proxyvote.com: Shareholder election website (2008), Referenced 2008 at http://www.proxyvote.com

  2. Vote-auction (2008), Referenced 2008 at http://www.vote-auction.net

  3. Baudron, O., Fouque, P.-A., Pointcheval, D., Stern, J., Poupard, G.: Practical multi-candidate election system. In: PODC 2001, pp. 274–283. ACM Press, New York (2001)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  4. Bellare, M., Rogaway, P.: Random oracles are practical: A paradigm for designing efficient protocols. In: 1st ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, pp. 62–73. ACM, New York (1993)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  5. Benaloh, J.C., Tuinstra, D.: Receipt-free secret-ballot elections (extended abstract). In: 26th ACM STOC, pp. 544–553 (1994)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Blum, M., De Santis, A., Micali, S., Persiano, G.: Noninteractive zero-knowledge. SIAM J. Comput. 20(6), 1084–1118 (1991)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  7. Boneh, D.: The Decision Diffie-Hellman problem. In: Buhler, J.P. (ed.) ANTS 1998. LNCS, vol. 1423, pp. 48–63. Springer, Heidelberg (1998)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  8. Boneh, D., Golle, P.: Almost entirely correct mixing with applications to voting. In: Atluri, V. (ed.) ACM CCS ’02, pp. 68–77. ACM Press, New York (2002)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  9. Brands, S.: Rethinking Public Key Infrastructures and Digital Certificates: Building in Privacy. MIT Press, Cambridge (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Camenisch, J., Lysyanskaya, A.: An efficient system for non-transferable anonymous credentials with optional anonymity revocation. In: Pfitzmann, B. (ed.) EUROCRYPT 2001. LNCS, vol. 2045, pp. 93–118. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  11. Camenisch, J., Stadler, M.: Efficient group signature schemes for large groups. In: Kaliski Jr., B.S. (ed.) CRYPTO 1997. LNCS, vol. 1294, pp. 410–424. Springer, Heidelberg (1997)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Canetti, R., Gennaro, R., Jarecki, S., Krawczyk, H., Rabin, T.: Adaptive security for threshold cryptosystems. In: Wiener, M. (ed.) CRYPTO 1999. LNCS, vol. 1666, pp. 98–115. Springer, Heidelberg (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Canetti, R., Dwork, C., Naor, M., Ostrovsky, R.: Deniable encryption. In: Kaliski Jr., B.S. (ed.) CRYPTO 1997. LNCS, vol. 1294, pp. 90–104. Springer, Heidelberg (1997)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Chaum, D.: Untraceable electronic mail, return addresses, and digital pseudonyms. Communications of the ACM 24(2), 84–88 (1981)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Chaum, D., Ryan, P.Y.A., Schneider, S.A.: A practical voter-verifiable election scheme. In: di Vimercati, S.d.C., Syverson, P.F., Gollmann, D. (eds.) ESORICS 2005. LNCS, vol. 3679, pp. 118–139. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  16. Clarkson, M.R., Chong, S., Myers, A.C.: Civitas: A secure voting system. Technical Report Technical Report 2007-2081, Cornell University Computing and Information Science (May 2007), Civitas Web site referenced 2008 at http://www.cs.cornell.edu/projects/civitas

  17. Cramer, R., Damgard, I., Schoenmakers, B.: Proofs of partial knowledge and simplified design of witness hiding protocols. In: Desmedt, Y.G. (ed.) CRYPTO 1994. LNCS, vol. 839, pp. 174–187. Springer, Heidelberg (1994)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Cramer, R., Gennaro, R., Schoenmakers, B.: A secure and optimally efficient multi-authority election scheme. In: Fumy, W. (ed.) EUROCRYPT 1997. LNCS, vol. 1233, pp. 103–118. Springer, Heidelberg (1997)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Cramer, R., Shoup, V.: A practical public key cryptosystem provably secure against adaptive chosen ciphertext attack. In: Krawczyk, H. (ed.) CRYPTO 1998. LNCS, vol. 1462, pp. 13–25. Springer, Heidelberg (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Chaum, D.: Secret-ballot receipts: True voter verifiable elections. IEEE Security and Privacy Magazine 2(1), 38–47 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Fujioka, A., Okamoto, T., Ohta, K.: A practical secret voting scheme for large scale elections. In: Zheng, Y., Seberry, J. (eds.) AUSCRYPT 1992. LNCS, vol. 718, pp. 244–251. Springer, Heidelberg (1993)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Furukawa, J.: Efficient, verifiable shuffle decryption and its requirement of unlinkability. In: Bao, F., Deng, R., Zhou, J. (eds.) PKC 2004. LNCS, vol. 2947, pp. 319–332. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Furukawa, J., Sako, K.: An efficient scheme for proving a shuffle. In: Kilian, J. (ed.) CRYPTO 2001. LNCS, vol. 2139, pp. 368–387. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  24. El Gamal, T.: A public key cryptosystem and a signature scheme based on discrete logarithms. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 31, 469–472 (1985)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  25. Gennaro, R., Jarecki, S., Krawczyk, H., Rabin, T.: The (in)security of distributed key generation in dlog-based cryptosystems. In: Stern, J. (ed.) EUROCRYPT 1999. LNCS, vol. 1592, pp. 295–310. Springer, Heidelberg (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Hirt, M., Sako, K.: Efficient receipt-free voting based on homomorphic encryption. In: Preneel, B. (ed.) EUROCRYPT 2000. LNCS, vol. 1807, pp. 539–556. Springer, Heidelberg (2000)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  27. Jakobsson, M., Juels, A.: Mix and match: Secure function evaluation via ciphertexts. In: Okamoto, T. (ed.) ASIACRYPT 2000. LNCS, vol. 1976, pp. 162–177. Springer, Heidelberg (2000)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  28. Jakobsson, M., Juels, A., Rivest, R.: Making mix nets robust for electronic voting by randomized partial checking. In: Boneh, D. (ed.) USENIX 2002, pp. 339–353 (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  29. Jakobsson, M., Sako, K., Impagliazzo, R.: Designated verifier proofs and their applications. In: Maurer, U.M. (ed.) EUROCRYPT 1996. LNCS, vol. 1070, pp. 143–154. Springer, Heidelberg (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Juels, A., Catalano, D., Jakobsson, M.: Coercion-resistant electronic elections. In: Workshop on Privacy in the Electronic Society (WPES), pp. 61–70 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Karlof, C., Sastry, N., Wagner, D.: Cryptographic voting protocols: A systems perspective. In: USENIX Security, pp. 33–49 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  32. Kiayias, A., Yung, M.: Self-tallying elections and perfect ballot secrecy. In: Naccache, D., Paillier, P. (eds.) PKC 2002. LNCS, vol. 2274, pp. 141–158. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  33. Kohno, T., Stubblefield, A., Rubin, A.D., Wallach, D.S.: Analysis of an electronic voting system. In: IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, pp. 27–40 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  34. MacKenzie, P.D., Shrimpton, T., Jakobsson, M.: Threshold password-authenticated key exchange. In: Yung, M. (ed.) CRYPTO 2002. LNCS, vol. 2442, pp. 385–400. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  35. Magkos, E., Burmester, M., Chrissikopoulos, V.: Receipt-freeness in large-scale elections without untappable channels. In: Schmid, B., et al. (eds.) First IFIP Conference on E-Commerce, E-Business, E-Government (I3E), pp. 683–694 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  36. Michels, M., Horster, P.: Some remarks on a receipt-free and universally verifiable mix-type voting scheme. In: Kim, K.-c., Matsumoto, T. (eds.) ASIACRYPT 1996. LNCS, vol. 1163, Springer, Heidelberg (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  37. Moran, T., Naor, M.: Receipt-free universally-verifiable voting with everlasting privacy. In: Dwork, C. (ed.) CRYPTO 2006. LNCS, vol. 4117, pp. 373–392. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  38. Neff, A.: A verifiable secret shuffle and its application to e-voting. In: Samarati, P. (ed.) ACM CCS 2001, pp. 116–125. ACM Press, New York (2001)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  39. Neff, C.A.: Practical high certainty intent verification for encrypted votes (October 2004), Referenced 2008 at http://www.votehere.com/vhti/documentation/vsv-2.0.3638.pdf

  40. Niemi, V., Renvall, A.: How to prevent buying of votes in computer elections. In: Safavi-Naini, R., Pieprzyk, J.P. (eds.) ASIACRYPT 1994. LNCS, vol. 917, pp. 164–170. Springer, Heidelberg (1995)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  41. Okamoto, T.: An electronic voting scheme. In: Terashima, N., et al. (eds.) IFIP World Congress, pp. 21–30 (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  42. Okamoto, T.: Receipt-free electronic voting schemes for large scale elections. In: Christianson, B., Lomas, M. (eds.) Security Protocols 1997. LNCS, vol. 1361, pp. 25–35. Springer, Heidelberg (1998)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  43. Paillier, P.: Public-key cryptosystems based on composite degree residuosity classes. In: Stern, J. (ed.) EUROCRYPT 1999. LNCS, vol. 1592, pp. 223–238. Springer, Heidelberg (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  44. Parker, S.: Shaking voter apathy up with IT. The Guardian, December 11 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  45. Paul, R.: Geneva brings quantum cryptography to internet voting. Ars Technica, October 12 (2007), Referenced 2008 at http://www.arstechnia.com

  46. Associated Press. France’s first online primary shows internet’s unprecedented importance in presidential race. International Herald Tribune, January 1 (2007), Referenced 2008 at http://www.iht.com

  47. Ryan, P.Y.A., Schneider, S.A.: Prêt à voter with re-encryption mixes. In: Gollmann, D., Meier, J., Sabelfeld, A. (eds.) ESORICS 2006. LNCS, vol. 4189, pp. 313–326. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  48. Sako, K., Kilian, J.: Receipt-free mix-type voting scheme. In: Guillou, L.C., Quisquater, J.-J. (eds.) EUROCRYPT 1995. LNCS, vol. 921, pp. 393–403. Springer, Heidelberg (1995)

    Google Scholar 

  49. Schnorr, C.-P.: Efficient signature generation by smart cards. Journal of Cryptology 4(3), 161–174 (1991)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  50. Schoenmakers, B.: A simple publicly verifiable secret sharing scheme and its application to electronic voting. In: Wiener, M. (ed.) CRYPTO 1999. LNCS, vol. 1666, pp. 148–164. Springer, Heidelberg (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  51. Schoenmakers, B.: Personal communication (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  52. Shamir, A.: How to share a secret. Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery 22(11), 612–613 (1979)

    MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  53. Tsiounis, Y., Yung, M.: On the security of elGamal based encryption. In: Imai, H., Zheng, Y. (eds.) PKC 1998. LNCS, vol. 1431, p. 117. Springer, Heidelberg (1998)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. RSA Laboratories, Bedford, MA, USA

    Ari Juels

  2. Università di Catania, Catania, Italy

    Dario Catalano

  3. PARC, Palo Alto, CA, USA

    Markus Jakobsson

Authors
  1. Ari Juels
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Dario Catalano
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Markus Jakobsson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Independent researcher,  

    David Chaum

  2. Palo Alto Research Center, CA, USA

    Markus Jakobsson

  3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Ronald L. Rivest

  4. University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg

    Peter Y. A. Ryan

  5. Microsoft Research Center, Redmond, WA, USA

    Josh Benaloh

  6. Wroclaw University of Technology, Poland

    Miroslaw Kutylowski

  7. Harvard Center for Research on Computation and Society, Boston, MA, USA

    Ben Adida

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Juels, A., Catalano, D., Jakobsson, M. (2010). Coercion-Resistant Electronic Elections. In: Chaum, D., et al. Towards Trustworthy Elections. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6000. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-12980-3_2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-12980-3_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-12979-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-12980-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation