E-voting authentication with QR-codes

Abstract

In this paper we propose an e-voting authentication scheme combined with QR-codes and visual cryptography. We focus on the usability, in order to supply voters with less technical experience with a usable scheme. The only requirement is that the user needs to handle a device containing a QR-code reader, most probably a smartphone. This approach is based on visual cryptography as the work horse: The e-voting passwords for authentication are encoded as QR-codes and later encrypted into shadow transparencies. Thus, the transparency by itself conveys no information but when the layers are combined, the secret password is revealed. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.