Paper 2009/574

Voting with unconditional privacy: CFSY for booth voting

Jeroen van de Graaf

Abstract

In this note we simplify the Cramer, Franklin, Schoenmaker and Yung internet voting protocol to the booth setting. In it, objects of the form $g_0^r g_1^{x_1}...g_l^{x_l}$ are used to define an unconditionally hiding commitment scheme. Because of their homomorphic properties they are particularly suited for voting protocols with unconditional privacy. In fact, we show that almost all existing protocols that provide unconditional privacy use or could benefit from these commitments. Even though we present no novelty from a cryptographic perpective, the protocol presented is interesting from a voting perspective because it is simple enough to be understood by non-cryptographers, yet very powerful.

Note: Corrected a minor mistake in the title