Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): Patrick McCorry, Ehsan Toreini, Dr Maryam Mehrnezhad
AbstractThe Economist and Kaspersky challenged us to design a blockchain system for digitalvoting. In response, we propose three protocols, the Open Vote Network, DRE‐i andDRE‐ip, for solving this challenge.We demonstrate that the Open Vote Network, a decentralised Internet votingprotocol, can be run over Ethereum’s blockchain today. Not only Ethereum can beused as a public bulletin board, but also it enforces the correct execution of thevoting protocol. However, the Open Vote Network is only suitable for small‐scaleelections. For national elections, we present DRE‐i and DRE‐ip which both rely on apublic bulletin board that can be realised using an Ethereum‐like blockchain.We improve trust in an election by removing trusted tallying authorities. Whilepreserving the voter’s privacy, our protocols allow anyone, including observers, toverify the integrity of the election without having to trust authorities. This follows asimilar philosophy as seen in crypto‐currencies such as Bitcoin which successfullyremoved the role of banks for maintaining a financial ledger.
Author(s): McCorry P, Toreini E, Mehrnezhad M
Publication type: Report
Publication status: Published
Series Title: School of Computing Science Technical Report Series
Year: 2016
Pages: 24
Print publication date: 14/11/2016
Acceptance date: 14/11/2016
Report Number: 1502
Institution: School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Place Published: Newcastle upon Tyne
URL: http://cs.ncl.ac.uk/publications/trs/papers/1502
Notes: New version
