A linked-list approach to cryptographically secure elections using instant runoff voting

Abstract

Numerous methods have been proposed to conduct cryptographically secure elections. Most of these protocols focus on 1-out-of-n voting schemes. Few protocols have been devised for preferential voting systems, in which voters provide a list of rankings of the candidates, and many of those treat ballots as if they were ballots in a 1-out-of-n voting scheme. We propose a linked-list-based scheme that provides improved privacy over current schemes, hiding voter preferences that should not be revealed. For large lists of candidates we achieve improved asymptotic performance. © 2008 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.