Cryptographically Verifiable Elections: A Rhetorical Design

Much work has been done in recent decades to apply sophisticated cryptographic techniques to achieve strong end-to-end verifiability in election protocols. The properties of these protocols are much stronger than in any sys-tem in general use; however, the complexity of these systems has retarded their adoption. This paper describes a relatively simple but still effective approach to cryptographic elec-tions. Although not as computationally ef-ficient as previously proposed cryptographic approaches, the work presented herein is in-tended to be more accessible and therefore more suitable for comparison with other vot-ing systems. Note: A prior version of this work has been submitted to the 2006 USENIX/ACCURAT