Ballot secrecy and ballot independence: definitions and relations

Ben Smyth; David Bernhard

Paper 2013/235

Ballot secrecy and ballot independence: definitions and relations

Ben Smyth and David Bernhard

Abstract

We study ballot independence for election schemes. First, we formally define ballot independence as a cryptographic game and prove that ballot secrecy implies ballot independence. Secondly, we introduce a notion of controlled malleability and prove that it is sufficient for ballot independence. We also prove that non-malleable ballots are sufficient for ballot independence. Thirdly, we prove that ballot independence is sufficient for ballot secrecy in a special case. Our results show that ballot independence is necessary in election schemes satisfying ballot secrecy. Furthermore, our sufficient conditions enable simpler proofs of ballot secrecy.

Metadata

Available format(s): PDF
Category: Foundations
Publication info: Published elsewhere. ESORICS'13: 18th European Symposium on Research in Computer Security
Keywords: anonymity applications ballot independence ballot secrecy election schemes foundations
Contact author(s): research @ bensmyth com
History: 2014-10-10: last of 2 revisions; 2013-04-29: received; See all versions
Short URL: https://ia.cr/2013/235
License: CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2013/235,
      author = {Ben Smyth and David Bernhard},
      title = {Ballot secrecy and ballot independence: definitions and relations},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2013/235},
      year = {2013},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2013/235}
}