Electronic Elections Research Articles

Implementation of a Secret and Verifiable Personal Remote Electronic Election of an Agrarian Organization per the Recommendation of the Council of Europe

Lockdowns and social progress have increased hours of work from home, often requiring remote methods of communication. Agricultural organizations from associations to cooperatives to joint stock companies must prepare to carry out more activities online. This article proposes a procedure for the possible implementation of a remote electronic election in personnel matters of the organization using the Belenios system, based on an evaluation of expectations from a questionnaire survey of agricultural college students and graduates. The proposed procedure is subsequently verified based on an evaluation of compliance with the Council of Europe recommendation on standards for electronic voting.

INNOVATIVE IT SOLUTIONS TO ENHANCE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ELECTRONIC ELECTIONS THROUGH BLOCKCHAIN

The shift towards electronic elections is driven by the need for increased efficiency and accessibility. However, the integrity of these systems is continually threatened by issues such as voter fraud, hacking incidents, and the absence of transparent audit trails. Existing solutions often fail to comprehensively address these challenges. This article introduced blockchain technology as a transformative approach to these electoral challenges. Employing methods such as advanced blockchain architectures, enhanced security protocols, and smart contract optimization, it establishes a secure, decentralized, and immutable ledger of votes. These methods counteracted many of the vulnerabilities inherent in traditional systems, achieving a higher standard of transparency, security, and voter privacy that was previously unachievable. The findings from detailed case studies and technological infrastructures discussed in subsequent sections demonstrate the effectiveness of these methods in enhancing election integrity. This examination showcases the relevance and potential of blockchain technology in revolutionizing electronic elections, offering a blueprint for secure, transparent, and efficient voting systems.

Improving Election Integrity: Blockchain and Byzantine Generals Problem Theory in Vote Systems

In the digital age, maintaining election integrity is critical, especially in Africa, where the security of electronic elections is often questioned. This study presents a blockchain-based vote counting and validation (BBVV) system developed using a mixed methods approach that combines stakeholder questionnaires to capture system specification and randomized historical election data analysis, following the Design Science Research strategy. Using the theory of the Byzantine General Problem, the BBVV protocol is proposed, which provides an accurate local count of votes at polling stations before national aggregation. The system was tested with randomized historical election data on the Algorand blockchain TestNet and confirmed that a local consensus on the vote count could be reached before it is added to the national tally on the blockchain. Our results show that in the cases where consensus was reached, this was the instance in only about 5% of the voting scenarios, with only 10% of the total vote being considered valid due to the strict consensus requirements. In addition, significant discrepancies were found between officials, with no consensus reached in 95% of cases which was due to the rogue values generated by a randomized dataset. The performance of the BBVV system was evaluated using transaction metrics, saturation, throughput, traffic, and latency to assess its efficiency, scalability, and reliability. The results suggest that blockchain technology can significantly improve the integrity of elections by ensuring a transparent, secure, and accurate vote-counting process. Future work will focus on improving the adaptability and scalability of the BBVV system for different electoral situations.

Hacker Attacks on Electronic Election and Vote Counting Systems: Estimation of Damages and Methods of Protection

The purpose of this study is to find the most effective and cost-efficient ways to improve the security and stability of electronic election and vote counting systems, as well as to identify the main targets of intruders and vulnerabilities of the system to prevent possible attacks. This paper describes the main types and of hacker attacks and their mechanism, assesses the consequences of damage to the structures of electronic elections in the United States, France, Germany, Northern Macedonia, and Indonesia. The vulnerabilities of electronic election systems were investigated and the technology for their detection during development and testing was provided. Recommendations were given on the implementation of preventive work to reduce the risks of hacker attacks. The study explained the motives of the crimes committed in the cyberspace of electronic election systems.

E-Voting System Using Blockchain and Face Recognition

Abstract: Voting systems have evolved over time, with paper voting becoming the most common worldwide. The introduction of electronic voting in the last decade has brought long-term solutions, but problems remain, especially in terms of security, trust, transparency and operation. Estonia has emerged as a leader in electronic voting despite limited blockchain integration. Blockchain technology offers a promising solution to these challenges through immutability and decentralization. However, current blockchain-based voting technology often lacks good solutions or lacks adequate measurement and evaluation. This article presents a new blockchain-based electronic voting platform designed to solve these problems in many elections. Our platform, which uses blockchain technology, prevents external intervention when starting the election by completing the administrative process in the central distribution system. Always be transparent while protecting voters' identities with homomorphic encryption. Our extensive testing and comparisons on our independent blockchain projects show that there is little difference between public and private blockchains. The main innovation of our solution is the provided management system using blockchain and homomorphic encryption, transparent process and stable security and self-assessment. This research contributes to the development of electronic elections to increase the security, transparency and efficiency of the democratic process.

Secure and Decentralized Voting System using Block Chain Technology

In today's democracies, increasing restrictions due to the inconvenience of physically traveling to vote is a big problem. These recommendations support the development of remote electronic voting as a solution to increase voter turnout by eliminating the need for travel. The document demonstrates the effectiveness of remote electronic voting, noting that it not only speeds up results but also reduces the risks inherent in voting by ballot paper. The article acknowledges the important role of security, trust, and transparency in promoting confidence, arguing that the implementation of electronic elections in remote areas should be well possible in these areas, especially given the high risks associated with elections. The discussion also delves into the integration of blockchain technology and introduces the concept of block sealing, demonstrating its adaptation to meet the specific requirements of the election process. One of the main recommendations made is the adoption of a blockchain organizational model that provides ownership and oversight by the governing body. This governance model is seen as a measure that will increase accountability and increase public confidence in the integrity of elections. However, the document acknowledges that many challenges need to be addressed, including cybersecurity threats. He emphasized that legal, ethical, and social issues must be taken into account to maintain and strengthen public trust. The combination of new technology and a strong administrative foundation is considered necessary for the success of remote e-voting. This review concludes by advocating continuous research and development efforts to refine and fortify remote voting systems. The intricate interplay between technology, governance, and public perception emerges as a key focus for realizing the full potential of remote electronic voting in shaping the future of democratic processes. We present the wording utilized in blockchain-based existing ballot frameworks in this segment. They are sorted in light of the agreement calculations, blockchain system, cryptography, qualities of a fruitful framework, and the advancement instruments used to carry out blockchain e-casting ballot frameworks

Electronic Voting System. History, Problems, and Perspectives

This paper presents a theoretical analysis of the development and application of electronic elections (e-elections) in the context of cyber security management. Components and tools of e-elections were presented and discussed in the organizational framework. The implementation of e-elections was analysed on the example of Estonia and Switzerland.

Електронні вибори як новітнє трансформаційне явище сучасної правової реальності

The article analyzes electronic elections as the latest transformative phenomenon of modern legal reality. Grouped advantages of electronic voting: voting in the electronic system is implemented faster, and there is no need to physically visit the polling station; electronic systems can enable people with physical limitations to vote, providing them with a choice of polling station; increase in voter turnout, in particular at the expense of young people, who are usually passive participants in the political process; electronic systems may have built-in security mechanisms that make the possibility of fraudulent vote counting more difficult; can provide the opportunity to vote remotely to citizens who are outside their state; replacing traditional paper voting with electronic voting can reduce the costs of printing and processing ballots; wide possibilities for analysis and statistical processing of data; the possibility of counting votes in real time; the possibility of implementing vote verification and audit mechanisms, as electronic systems can be equipped with tools to verify the accuracy of votes. Motivated that the implementation of e-voting in times of crisis requires a particularly high level of security and protection to avoid possible influence from outside or internal threats, an additional criterion for the legitimacy of e-voting is to ensure the availability of this technology to all sections of society, including those who may have limited access to the Internet or technical means. It has been proven that if the duration of the war is extended, electronic governance can become the only possible means for getting out of the political and legal crisis, renewing the power apparatus and democratizing state institutions. However, the implementation of such technologies should be used as an exclusive alternative for persons who are combatants or civilians living near the arena of hostilities, in other (relatively calm) territory, the classical system of the election process cannot be replaced by other forms, because this will lead to significant threats illegitimacy of the entire election procedure.

Security Attacks on E-Voting System Using Blockchain

Electronic voting has become popular in democratic countries, and thus the cyber security of this system is demanded. In this paper, some attacks were made on a proposed electronic election model based on blockchain technology, where the impact of each attack (Sybil, DDoS, Eclipse, Selfish mining, 51% attack) was calculated, and the time in which it achieved 51% of the attack was calculated. In this study, we investigate of Blockchain technology’s attack surface, focusing on general blockchains. The following factors show how these attacks have an impact on the proposed model: 1) The cryptographic architecture of the Blockchain. 2) The distributed architecture of systems using Blockchain. 3) The Blockchain application context. For each of these factors, we identify several attacks, including selfish mining, 51% attack, sybil attacks, eclipse attacks, distributed denial-of-service (DDos) attacks, consensus delay (due to selfish behavior or distributed denial-of-service attacks), blockchain forks, orphan blocks, block swallowing, wallet theft, smart contract attacks, and privacy attacks.

Security Attacks on E-Voting System Using Blockchain

Electronic voting has become popular in democratic countries, and thus the cyber security of this system is demanded. In this paper, some attacks were made on a proposed electronic election model based on blockchain technology, where the impact of each attack (Sybil, DDoS, Eclipse, Selfish mining, 51% attack) was calculated, and the time in which it achieved 51% of the attack was calculated. In this study, we investigate of Blockchain technology’s attack surface, focusing on general blockchains. The following factors show how these attacks have an impact on the proposed model: 1) The cryptographic architecture of the Blockchain. 2) The distributed architecture of systems using Blockchain. 3) The Blockchain application context. For each of these factors, we identify several attacks, including selfish mining, 51% attack, sybil attacks, eclipse attacks, distributed denial-of-service (DDos) attacks, consensus delay (due to selfish behavior or distributed denial-of-service attacks), blockchain forks, orphan blocks, block swallowing, wallet theft, smart contract attacks, and privacy attacks.

SoK: Secure E-Voting with Everlasting Privacy

Vote privacy is a fundamental right, which needs to be protected not only during an election, or for a limited time afterwards, but for the foreseeable future. Numerous electronic voting (e-voting) protocols have been proposed to address this challenge, striving for everlasting privacy. This property guarantees that even computationally unbounded adversaries cannot break privacy of past elections. The broad interest in secure e-voting with everlasting privacy has spawned a large variety of protocols over the last three decades. These protocols differ in many aspects, in particular the precise security properties they aim for, the threat scenarios they consider, and the privacy-preserving techniques they employ. Unfortunately, these differences are often opaque, making analysis and comparison cumbersome. In order to overcome this non-transparent state of affairs, we systematically analyze all e-voting protocols designed to provide everlasting privacy. First, we illustrate the relations and dependencies between all these different protocols. Next, we analyze in depth which protocols do provide secure and efficient approaches to e-voting with everlasting privacy under realistic assumptions, and which ones do not. Eventually, based on our extensive and detailed treatment, we identify which research problems in this field have already been solved, and which ones are still open. Altogether, our work offers a well - founded reference point for conducting research on secure e - voting with everlasting privacy as well as for future - proofing privacy in real - world electronic elections.

Certificateless threshold signature from lattice

Threshold signature has been widely used in electronic wills, electronic elections, cloud computing, secure multi-party computation and other fields. Until now, certificateless threshold signature schemes are all based on traditional mathematic theory, so they cannot resist quantum computing attacks. In view of this, we combine the advantages of lattice-based cryptosystem and certificateless cryptosystem to construct a certificateless threshold signature from lattice (LCLTS) that is efficient and resistant to quantum algorithm attacks. LCLTS has the threshold characteristics and can resist the quantum computing attacks, and the analysis shows that it is unforgeable against the adaptive Chosen-Message Attacks (UF-CMA) with the difficulty of Inhomogeneous Small Integer Solution (ISIS) problem. In addition, LCLTS solves the problems of the certificate management through key escrow.

Implications of Rescheduling the Direct Election of The Regional Head (PILKADA) of South Sumatra in The Midst of The Covid-19 Pandemic

Based on Article 201 paragraph (6) of Law Number 10 of 2016, Indonesia has an agenda to hold the General Election for Regional Heads (Pilkada) on September 23, 2020. This Covid-19 pandemic period has caused simultaneous Regional Head elections (Pilkada) in seven districts and cities in South Sumatra (Sumsel) were officially postponed, this delay was due to the corona virus outbreak or Covid-19. The purpose of this study is to explain, analyze and find laws in providing alternatives for filling regional head positions during the Covid-19 pandemic. The research method uses empirical juridical (field research), namely examining the applicable legal provisions and what is happening in reality in society. The results show several alternative patterns of filling regional head positions during the Covid-19 pandemic, including through the appointment of a temporary acting or task executor (Plt), indirect elections, and elections using the electronic election system. Each pattern has its advantages and disadvantages, with strong logical and juridical arguments that can be taken into consideration.

Electronic municipality in the Republic of Belarus: essence, state and development prospects

Information technology is an important part of government at the local level. Also, information technologies make it possible for citizens to participate in the management of local life. These relations constitute an electronic municipality (E-municipality). An electronic municipality cannot be effectively used without a scientific base. In the Republic of Belarus, the electronic municipality has specifics due to the presence of two independent systems at the local level – the system of local government and local self-government. At the moment, such elements of an electronic municipality as the representation of local authorities on the Internet, electronic appeals, electronic rulemaking are working in Belarus. However, there are problems in their work. The following forms are not used: electronic elections, electronic voting, electronic reception offices of authorities, electronic meetings, etc. The development and commissioning of a Unified portal of local self-government will be able to solve these problems. The portal will solve the problem of poor representation of local authorities in the online space, will become the basis for the development of electronic rule-making, and eventually – electronic elections, electronic referendums, electronic meetings and other forms of electronic direct democracy.

Electronic election as a challenge of modern age

Electronic election as a challenge of modern age

Certificateless multivariate ring signcryption scheme

Certificateless ring signcryption can guarantee the unconditional anonymity of signcrypter, and can realize the confidentiality and unforgeability at the same time. However, the certificateless ring signcryption based on traditional cryptosystem cannot resist the quantum computing attacks. In view of this, we propose certificateless multivariable ring signcryption scheme (CL-MRSCS) with anti-quantum, whose security relies on the hardness of multivariate quadratic (MQ) problem and isomorphism of polynomials (IP) problem. CL-MRSCS satisfies the unconditional anonymity, confidentiality and unforgeability; in addition, it has high computation efficiency and is suitable for applications in electronic election system and electronic cash system.

Development of Electronic Elections Systems: A Review

Electronic voting is fast growing rapidly and offers more benefits than traditional paper voting. The use of technology in the voting process has received a lot of attention in recent years. The existing voting systems have several security flaws, and proving even basic security characteristics regarding them is challenging. E-voting system using blockchain works as a step towards creating secure and transparent environment for elections, where the users will be able to view the total votes casted in real time without having the permission to edit after elections get over. The popularity of E-voting system is increasing in countries all over the world, for that reason this research presents a brief overview to evaluate previous national electronic voting systems in a variety of nations, how they evolved and what were their disadvantages before the appearance of blockchain technology. Then we explain the blockchain technology as well as review some of the electronic voting systems that use blockchain technology and present the strengths and weaknesses of it.

Government Discretion of the Regional Election Implementation During Covid-19 Pandemic Through Technology Utilitization

The simultaneous regional elections held in 2020 in Indonesia encountered a problem. The constraints experienced are not due to a lack of supply materials for the elections or the absence of regulations on the regional elections, but to a condition experienced by the whole world, namely the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. This research is included in normative research with a statutory and conceptual approach. This research aims to formulate the discretion that the government must carry out so that simultaneous regional elections are still carried out as a form of legal protection for the people regarding the right to vote and be elected in simultaneous regional elections, namely elections electronically with the use of technology and then the authors analyse and reconstruct Law Number 6 of 2020 concerning the simultaneous regional elections to formulate rules regarding the existence of an electronic election system to minimize the occurrence of population mobilization.

Institutional Potential of Mass Media in the Process of Political Socialization of Russian Youth

The aim of the study is a comprehensive analysis of the main directions of optimizing the system of political socialization of young people in the context of the development of the electronic media environment. The article identifies and reveals the main problems of the influence of media information flows on the formation of socio-political orientations of young citizens. The mass media were and remain the most important institution of political socialization of the younger generation, having a direct influence on the assimilation of social norms by young citizens, the formation of political values among them and, as a result, the expression by the younger generation of various forms of socio-political activity.An assessment of the role of the media in the political socialization of modern Russian youth showed that the activities of traditional media in the Russian political space are noticeably lost in relation to electronic media resources. In the digital age, it is advisable to assess the possibilities of the influence of various digital media channels on the political consciousness and behavior of young people.The conclusion is justified that young people are not only an object, but also a subject of political socialization. Under the influence of the media environment, this process is increasingly not vertical, but horizontal in nature, when young citizens demonstrate alternative forms of socio-political activity and models of political behavior — from electronic elections to the signing of online petitions, as well as continuously choose from possible images of the world thanks to the activities of electronic media, etc. Electronic media, especially network media, are largely responsible for initiating models of socio-political activity of young citizens. Based on a large factual material, the author considers the media preferences of young citizens when exposed to traditional, electronic and online media. The role of Internet socialization of youth in the activation of institutional forms of its participation in the democratization of Russian society is justified.

Quantum Election Protocol Based on Quantum Public Key Cryptosystem

There is no quantum election protocol that can fulfil the eight requirements of an electronic election protocol, i.e., completeness, robustness, privacy, legality, unreusability, fairness, verifiability, and receipt-freeness. To address this issue, we employ the general construction of quantum digital signature and quantum public key encryption, in conjunction with classic public key encryption, to develop and instantiate a general construction of quantum election protocol. The proposed protocol exhibits the following advantages: (i) no pre-shared key between any two participants is required, and no trusted third party or anonymous channels are required. The protocol is suitable for large-scale elections with numerous candidates and voters and accommodates the situation in which multiple voters vote simultaneously. (ii) It is the first protocol that dismantles the contradiction between verifiability and receipt-freeness in a quantum election protocol. It satisfies all eight requirements stated earlier under the physical assumptions that there exists a one-way untappable channel from the administrator to the voter and that there is no collusion between any of the three parties in the protocol. Compared with current election protocols with verifiability and receipt-freeness, this protocol relies upon fewer physical assumptions. (iii) This construction is flexible and can be instantiated into an election scheme having post-quantum security by applying cryptographic algorithms conveying post-quantum security. Moreover, utilizing quantum digital signature and public key encryption yields a good result: the transmitted ballots are in quantum states, so owing to the no-cloning theorem, ballot privacy is less likely to be compromised, even if private keys of the signature and public key encryption are leaked after the election. However, in existing election protocols employing classic digital signatures and public key encryption, ballot privacy can be easily violated if attackers obtain private keys. Thus, our construction enhances privacy.