Paper 2017/166

A roadmap to fully homomorphic elections: Stronger security, better verifiability

Kristian Gjøsteen and Martin Strand

Abstract

After the trials of remote internet voting for local elections in 2011 and parliamentary elections in 2013, a number of local referendums has renewed interest in internet voting in Norway. The voting scheme used in Norway is not quantum-safe and it has limited voter verifiability. In this case study, we consider how we can use fully homomorphic encryption to construct a quantum-safe voting scheme with better voter verifiability. While fully homomorphic cryptosystems are not efficient enough for the the system we sketch to be implemented and run today, we expect future improvements in fully homomorphic encryption which may eventually make these techniques practical.