Speakup: remote unsupervised voting

Abstract

We present SpeakUp, a novel way to cast a ballot remotely, using a personal computer connected to the Internet. SpeakUp is resis- tant to potential malware installed on the voter’s machine, addresses voter authentication, and offers some degree of protection against mas- sive coercion. The main idea is that voters are required to read out loud a short text that is associated with the candidate for whom they wish to vote. The voting server identifies the voter by the characteristics of their voice and identifies which text was read. The text, along with the voter’s voice, is publicly posted on a bulletin board, and may serve as a receipt for a universally verifiable method of tallying. SpeakUp is based on the bio- metric characteristics of the voter’s voice. Speaker verification is used to authenticate the voters. Similar to voice biometrics, it is assumed that it is difficult for computers to spoof the voter’s voice.