Going from bad to worse: from Internet voting to

blockchain voting

Abstract:
Voters are understandably concerned about election security. News reports of possible election

interference by foreign powers, of unauthorized voting, of voter disenfranchisement, and of

technological failures call into question the integrity of elections worldwide. This article examines

the suggestions that “voting over the Internet” or “voting on the blockchain” would increase election
security, and finds such claims to be wanting and misleading. While current election systems

are far from perfect, Internet- and blockchain-based voting would greatly increase the risk of
undetectable, nation-scale election failures. Online voting may seem appealing: voting from a computer
or smartphone may seem convenient and accessible. However, studies have been inconclusive, showing
that online voting may have little to no effect on turnout in practice, and it may even

increase disenfranchisement. More importantly, given the current state of computer security, any

turnout increase derived from Internet- or blockchain-based voting would come at the cost of losing
meaningful assurance that votes have been counted as they were cast, and not undetectably

altered or discarded. This state of affairs will continue as long as standard tactics such as malware,

zero day, and denial-of-service attacks continue to be effective. This article analyzes and systematizes
prior research on the security risks of online and electronic voting, and shows that not only do

these risks persist in blockchain-based voting systems, but blockchains may introduce ‘additional’

problems for voting systems. Finally, we suggest questions for critically assessing security risks of

new voting system proposals.

Key words: blockchain voting; election security; electronic voting

Abstract. Voting refers to the submission of an election or an opinion on a specific matter by
expressing an intention on the ballot to a certain place. The existing voting method has the burden of
counting time and cost. For this reason, research has been conducted to introduce an e-voting system.
However, despite the advantages of e-voting, it is not widely used due to the risk of manipulation of
voting results and various requirements. Recently, in order to reduce the risk of data manipulation,
research is being conducted to apply the blockchain, a technology that guarantees data integrity, to e-
voting. Blockchain guarantees the integrity of data, but has a weakness in secrecy. This paper applies the
critical encryption technique to the blockchain and satisfies the requirements for voting such as
verifiability, anonymity, fairness, non-reusability, competence, safety, transparency, and non-ticketing.
We propose a system design and implementation method. The proposed blockchain-based e-voting
system provides voter anonymity by issuing a voter certificate based on a blockchain address. The e-
voting election monitoring committee generates a threshold group encryption key, and the proposed
blockchainbased e-voting system guarantees confidentiality by a threshold group encryption algorithm
during the voting process. The voting result is encrypted through a homomorphic encryption algorithm
and stored in the blockchain. Thus, the released voting results ensure safety, confidentiality,
transparency, and non-vote ticketing. In addition, the proposed blockchain-based e-voting system
guarantees the unity and competence of voting through the blockchain's smart contract.

3. Proposed Blockchain based e-Voting System for Vote Requirements

The proposed blockchain based e-voting system provides anonymity for voters by issuing voting
certificates based on blockchain addresses. The election supervisory committee, composed of people
with conflicting interests, creates a critical group encryption key, giving confidentiality by the critical
encryption algorithm during the voting process. The voting content is encrypted through a
homomorphic encryption algorithm and stored in the blockchain, and the public voting content of
proposed blockchain based e-voting system satisfies safety, confidentiality, transparency, and non-
ticketing. Blockchain's smart contract provides the unity and competence of voting in figure 1.

Process of voting contract creation is presented in figure 2 and each

stage messages flows are depicted in bellows.
⓵ The election commission committee generates election contracts. ⓶ The election commission
committee registers candidates in the election contract. At this time, the unique number of each
candidate to be used for the aggregation shall be registered together. ⓷ Election contracts generate
homomorphic cryptographic asymmetric keys, store public keys in a system, and deliver secret keys to
the Election Commission.
 Process of composition of Vote Auditing Group and enrolment of
cryptographic keys is presented in figure 3 and each stage messages
flows are depicted in bellows. ⓵ The election commission committee forms a vote
auditing group and requests the enrolment of encryption keys. ⓶ The vote auditing group generates a
key for encrypting and validating voting contents, enrolments the public key in the vote contract, and
keeps the secret key individually.

Process of grant voting right to wallet is presented in figure 4 and each stage messages flows are
depicted in bellows. ⓵ Voters generate a blockchain wallet for e-voting. ⓶ Voters ask for voting
authority by presenting the proposed e-voting block wallet address created by the election commission
committee. ⓷ After confirming the requester's voting authority, the election commission committee
grants voting right to the wallet presented.

Process of voting is presented in figure 5 and each stage messages flows are depicted in bellows. ⓵
Voter requests list of candidates. ⓶ The election contract confirms the address presented and sends the
list of candidates. ⓷ Voters enter candidate numbers manually. ⓸ The election contract extracts the
voting content from the voters' hand-written images and presents the voting content to the voters. ⓹
Voters check the voting details extracted by the voting system, sign their own secret keys on the hand-
written images and extracted voting contents, and register their handwritten images with their own
public key again as evidence of voting. ⓺ Election contracts prevent double voting by scrapping voting
rights granted to a block change box of a voter's proposed e-voting system. ⓻ Electoral contracts store
voter encrypted voting evidence separately. ⓼ Voting data and verification data are created and stored
in the blockchain, respectively, using the location where the voting evidence is stored and the extracted
voting details. ⓽ Stored voting evidence is used to check whether or not the contents of the vote are
reflected properly after the voting is completed. ⓾ When stored in a blockchain by election contract,
the generated transaction key is distributed to the voters as a receipt. This transaction key allows voters
to verify that their voting is recorded in the blockchain.

4. Conclusion Research on the existing e-voting system has targeted only some of the
requirements for e-voting, and not all e-voting requirements have been satisfied. In particular, the
encryption of data stored in the blockchain was used for voting results, and there was a problem in
verifying the voter’s voting results. In this study, we designed a blockchain-based e-voting system that
includes the process of encryption and verification of voting results. The proposed blockchain-based e-
voting system satisfies the requirements of e-voting as follows: First, the proposed blockchain-based e-
voting system stores voting results in a blockchain that cannot be altered. The stored voting results are
homogeneously encrypted, and the voting results are opened to the public. Therefore, anyone can
check the accuracy of the vote count results. Voters can check and approve their vote results; thereby,
the proposed blockchain-based e-voting system prevents voters from a voting result that is different
from their intentions. Therefore, the proposed blockchain-based e-voting system guarantees stability.
Second, the proposed blockchainbased e-voting system uses the poll site voting method, and builds an
independent environment that is separate from the general network. Therefore, the proposed
blockchain-based e-voting system guarantees integrity by removing external risk factors, such as
hacking. Third, there is no direct connection between the voter with voting authority and the voter’s
blockchain wallet used in the voting process, and voters cannot be inferred from the blockchain wallet.
The order of the voting results released after the voting counting is changed through MixNet, and the
voting results of the voters cannot be grasped using the voting order. When a vote is made, the voter
creates a new blockchain wallet. Since the address of the blockchain wallet used for voting is changed
every time, it is impossible to predict from the past voting history. Through this, the proposed
blockchain-based e-voting system guarantees confidentiality. Fourth, each voter receives the blockchain
wallet address information, and stores the voting result in the blockchain wallet address. Using the
smart contract of the blockchain, the smart contract checks whether the address of the blockchain
wallet is voting, and one vote is allowed. Through this, the proposed blockchain-based e-voting system
guarantees unity and competence. Fifth, during the voting process, the voter’s voting results are
critically encrypted. Through critical encryption, the voting results are made impossible to decrypt by a
specific group. Through this, the proposed blockchain-based e-voting system ensures fairness by
preventing previous voting from affecting the remaining voting. Sixth, after voting, the voter can use the
voting receipt to confirm that his or her vote is stored in the normal blockchain. After counting the
voting results, voters can check the reflection of the voting results .The proposed blockchain-based e-
voting system creates both voting count data, and voting verification data. The voting count data and
the voting verification data use a separate encryption key, and the proposed blockchain-based e-voting
system guarantees verification. Seventh, after counting the votes, it is impossible for a voter to
independently check the results of his or her vote. This disallows the act of voting through the disclosure
of the voter’s voting results. This study confirms that when applying a blockchain and cryptographic
algorithm, a system that satisfies the requirements of e-voting is possible.

Conclusion A summary of this article’s takeaways follows. 1. Blockchain technology does not solve
the fundamental security problems suffered by all electronic voting systems (“Blockchains as a ballot
box” section). Moreover, blockchains may introduce new problems that nonblockchain-based voting
systems would not suffer from. 2. Electronic, online, and blockchain-based voting systems are more
vulnerable to serious failures than available paper-ballotbased alternatives (“Vulnerabilities of electronic
voting systems” section). Moreover, given the state of the art in computer security, they will continue to
be so for the foreseeable future. 3. Adding new technologies to systems may create new potential for
attacks. Particular caution is appropriate in security-critical applications, especially where political
pressures may favor an expedited approach (“New problems blockchains introduce” section). The article
has also provided a collection of critical questions intended as a reference point for evaluating any new
voting system proposal from a security perspective (“Critical questions” section) and provided
references for further reading on this topic (“Related work” section). Blockchain-based voting methods
fail to live up to their apparent promise. While they may appear to offer better security for voting, they
do not help to solve the major security problems with online voting, and might well make security
worse.