New Standards for E-Voting Systems: Reflections on Source Code Examinations

Thomas Haines*, Peter Roenne

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

There is a difference between a system having no known attacks and the system being secure—as cryptographers know all too well. Once we begin talking about the implementations of systems this issue becomes even more prominent since the amount of material which needs to be scrutinised skyrockets. Historically, lack of transparency and low standards for e-voting system implementations have resulted in a culture where open source code is seen as a gold standard; however, this ignores the issue of the comprehensibility of that code. In this work we make concrete empirical recommendations based on our, and others, experiences and findings from examining the source code of e-voting systems. We highlight that any solution used for significant elections should be well designed, carefully analysed, deftly built, accurately documented and expertly maintained. Until e-voting system implementations are clear, comprehensible, and open to public scrutiny security standards are unlikely to improve.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationFinancial Cryptography and Data Security. FC 2021 International Workshops - CoDecFin, DeFi, VOTING, and WTSC, Revised Selected Papers
EditorsMatthew Bernhard, Andrea Bracciali, Lewis Gudgeon, Thomas Haines, Ariah Klages-Mundt, Shin'ichiro Matsuo, Daniel Perez, Massimiliano Sala, Sam Werner
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Pages279-289
Number of pages11
ISBN (Print)9783662639573
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021
Externally publishedYes
Event2nd Workshop on Coordination of Decentralized Finance, CoDecFin 2021, 1st Workshop on Decentralized Finance, DeFi 2021, 6th Workshop on Advances in Secure Electronic Voting, VOTING 2021, and 5th Workshop on Trusted Smart Contracts, WTSC 2021, held in conjunction with the 25th International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security, FC 2021 - Virtual, Online
Duration: 5 Mar 20215 Mar 2021

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume12676 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference2nd Workshop on Coordination of Decentralized Finance, CoDecFin 2021, 1st Workshop on Decentralized Finance, DeFi 2021, 6th Workshop on Advances in Secure Electronic Voting, VOTING 2021, and 5th Workshop on Trusted Smart Contracts, WTSC 2021, held in conjunction with the 25th International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security, FC 2021
CityVirtual, Online
Period5/03/215/03/21

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'New Standards for E-Voting Systems: Reflections on Source Code Examinations'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this