A Bitcoin based secure electronic voting system

Abstract

Over the last few decades, several electronic systems have been proposed and implemented to as attempt to replace the traditional paper-based voting systems. Even though the e-voting system are more efficient and convenient than the traditional voting systems, it was identified that they should meet the specific security goals, such as authentication, anonymity, availability, and integrity up to the same level that is provided by manual systems. If the voting system is centralized and controlled by one party, they may have the opportunity to manipulate the votes thereby compromise the integrity. In this paper we propose a Bitcoin based online transaction system to provide a solution to the identified integrity related threats in an electronic voting system. We have taken an existing, well-proven, robust, scalable e-cash system as the basis for implementing the e-voting system. A comprehensive list of properties and features expected of an e-cash system and e-voting system have been analysed in the paper to show how different properties/features of an e-voting system map to an e-cash system. We have shown how various functionalities of a bit coin-like system directly provide the required features/properties of an e-voting system. Also, we have shown how various functionalities of a bitcoin-like system can be modified and/or adapted to provide some of the other required features/properties of an e-voting system. Based on the outcomes of the methodology, we discuss how the complete e-voting system is going to be built on blockchain technology. Further, we discuss how strongly various security and performance requirements are being met in the research work related to the proposed e-voting system.