2015 neuchȃtel’s cast-as-intended verification mechanism

Abstract

Cast-as-intended verification seeks to prove to a voter that their vote was cast according to their intent. In case ballot casting is made remotely through a voting client, one of the most important dangers a designer faces are malicious voting clients (e.g. infected by a malware), which may change the voter’s selections. A previous approach for achieving cast-as-intended verification in this setting uses the so-called Return Codes. These allow a voter to check whether their voting options were correctly received by the ballot server, while keeping these choices private. An essential ingredient of this approach is a mechanism that allows a voter to discard a vote that does not represent their intent. This is usually solved using multiple voting, namely, if the return codes received by the voter do not match their choices, they cast a new vote. However, what happens if voters are not allowed to cast more than one ballot (aka single vote casting)? In this paper we propose a simple ballot casting protocol, using return codes, for allowing a voter to verify votes in a single vote casting election. We do so without significantly impacting the number of operations in the client side. This voting protocol has been implemented in a binding election in the Swiss canton of Neuchˆatel in March 2015, and will be the canton’s new voting platform.