Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

E-Voting System Evaluation Based on the Council of Europe Recommendations: nVotes

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Electronic Voting (E-Vote-ID 2020)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 12455))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

E-voting implantation has been facing important challenges in recent years. Several incidents, together with a lack of evaluation methodologies social and cultural customs hinder a broader application. In this work, the authors aim to contribute to a safer introduction of e-voting tools by applying a practical evaluation framework strongly based on the security requirements issued by the Council of Europe (CoE) in 2017 to nvotes, a system that has been utilized to cast over 2 million votes over the last 6 years.

The ultimate goal of the analysis is not to judge from a rigid, “infallible” but to contribute to a gradual and secure implementation of e-voting solutions in the democratic processes. The authors believe it can constitute a useful source of information for election officials, researchers and voters.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    For a better understanding, see International IDEA’s database on use of ICT in Elections: https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/icts-elections (last accessed 4 June 2020).

  2. 2.

    For a complete explanation of the previous process, please refer to the original work in [6, 8].

References

  1. Vinkel, P., Krimmer, R.: The how and why to internet voting an attempt to explain e-stonia. In: Krimmer, R., et al. (eds.) E-Vote-ID 2016. LNCS, vol. 10141, pp. 178–191. Springer, Cham (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52240-1_11

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  2. Solvak, M., Vassil, K.: Could internet voting halt declining electoral turnout? new evidence that e-voting is habit forming. Policy Internet 10(1), 4–21 (2018)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Krimmer, R., Duenas-Cid, D., Krivonosova, I., Vinkel, P., Koitmae, A.: How much does an e-vote cost? Cost comparison per vote in multichannel elections in estonia. In: Krimmer, R., et al. (eds.) E-Vote-ID 2018. LNCS, vol. 11143, pp. 117–131. Springer, Cham (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00419-4_8

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  4. Krimmer, R. et al.: New methodology for calculating cost-efficiency of different ways of voting: is internet voting cheaper? Public Money Manage. 1–10 (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Trechsel, A.H., et al.: Potential and Challenges of E-Voting in the EU Study. Bruss (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Gjøsteen, K.: Analysis of an internet voting protocol. IACR Cryptol. ePrint Arch. 1–16 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32747-6_1

  7. Kulyk, O., et al.: Electronic voting with fully distributed trust and maximized flexibility regarding ballot design. In: EVOTE 2014. pp. 139–149. TUT Press, Bregenz (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Oostveen, A.-M., Van den Besselaar, P.: Security as belief user’s perceptions on the security of electronic voting systems. Electron. Voting Eur. Technol. 47, 73–82 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Council of Europe: Recommendation CM/Rec(2017)5 of the Committee of Ministers to member States on standards for e-voting (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Driza Maurer, A.: Updated European standards for e-voting. In: Krimmer, R., Volkamer, M., Braun Binder, N., Kersting, N., Pereira, O., Schürmann, C. (eds.) E-Vote-ID 2017. LNCS, vol. 10615, pp. 146–162. Springer, Cham (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68687-5_9

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  11. Bräunlich, K., Grimm, R., Richter, P.: Sichere Internetwahlen Ein rechtswissenschaftlich-informatisches Modell. Nomos (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Hammer, V., Pordesch, U.: KORA (Konkretisierung Rechtlicher Inforderungen). Betriebliche Telefon und ISDN-Anlagen rechtsgemäss gestaltet (1993)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation Part 1 : Introduction and general model July 2009 Revision 3 Final Foreword. Nist, vol. 49, 93, July 2009

    Google Scholar 

  14. Neumann, S.R.: Evaluation and Improvement of Internet Voting Schemes Based on Legally-Founded Security Requirements. Technische Universität Darmstadt (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Electoral Commission New South Gales. http://www.elections.nsw.gov.au/voting/ivote. Accessed 12 May 2020

  16. Marcos del Blanco, D.Y., Panizo Alonso, L., Hermida Alonso, J.A.: The need for Harmonization in the online voting field: towards an European Standard for edemocracy. In: E-Vote-ID 2016, Bregenz, Austria, 18-21 October 2016, Proceedings, pp. 339–340 (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Standards: Guidelines on the implementation of the provisions of Recommendation CM/Rec(2017)5 on standards for e-voting. 1289 th Meet., 14 June 2017 2. 3 Ad hoc Comm. Expert. Leg., Oper. Tech. Stand. e- voting (CAHVE), June, pp. 1–19 (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Constitución Española, pp. 101931–101941. https://www.boe.es/legislacion/documentos/ConstitucionCASTELLANO.pdf. Accessed 12 May 2020

  19. Panizo Alonso, L., Gasco, M., Marcos del Blanco, D.Y., Hermida Alonso, J.A., Alaiz Moreton, H.: E-voting system evaluation based on the Council of Europe recommendations: Helios Voting. IEEE Trans. Emerg. Top. Comput. (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Simić-Draws, D., et al.: Holistic and law compatible IT security evaluation: integration of common criteria, ISO 27001/IT- and KORA. Int. J. Inf. Secur. Priv. 7, 16–35 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Goodman, L.: Snowball sampling. Ann. Math. Stat. 32, 148–170 (1961)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  22. Kish, L.: Sample Design in Business Research. American Statistical Association, Ltd

    Google Scholar 

  23. Benaloh, J.D.C., Rivest, R., Ryan, et al.: End-to-end verifiability. arXiv e-prints (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Bernhard, D., Neumann, S., Volkamer, M.: Towards a practical cryptographic voting scheme based on malleable proofs. In: Heather, J., Schneider, S., Teague, V. (eds.) Vote-ID 2013. LNCS, vol. 7985, pp. 176–192. Springer, Heidelberg (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39185-9_11

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  25. Zissis, D., Lekkas, D.: Design, Development, and Use of Secure Electronic Voting Systems (2014). http://services.igiglobal.com/resolvedoi/resolve.aspx?

  26. Taiwhenua, T.T.: The Department of Internal Affairs - Online voting. https://www.dia.govt.nz/online-voting. Accessed 12 May 2020

  27. Marcos del Blanco, D.Y.: Cybersecurity applied to e-democracy: cryptographic analysis and development of a practical evaluation methodology for remote electronic voting systems and its application to the most relevant solutions. University of Leon (2018). http://riasc.unileon.es/archivos/documentos/tesis/Tesis_David_Y_Marcos.pdf

  28. nVotes. https://nvotes.com/. Accessed 14 May 2020

  29. Impact Accelerator. https://www.impact-accelerator.com/. Accessed 14 May 2020

  30. Marcos del Blanco, D.Y., Gascó, M.: A protocolized, comparative study of helios voting and Scytl/iVote. In: International Conference on eDemocracy & eGovernment (ICEDEG), pp. 31–38 IEEE (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Adida, B.: Helios: web-based open-audit voting. In: Proceedings of the 17th Conference on Security Symposium, pp. 335–348. USENIX Association, Berkeley (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  32. Kulyk, O., Teague, V., Volkamer, M.: Extending helios towards private eligibility verifiability. In: Haenni, R., Koenig, Reto E., Wikström, D. (eds.) VOTELID 2015. LNCS, vol. 9269, pp. 57–73. Springer, Cham (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22270-7_4

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  33. Cortier, V., Gaudry, P., Glondu, S.: Belenios: a simple private and verifiable electronic voting system. In: Foundations of Security, Protocols, and Equational Reasoning, pp. 214–238 (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  34. Esendex. https://www.esendex.es/. Accessed 14 May 2020

  35. Cloudfare. https://www.cloudflare.com. Accessed 15 May 2020

  36. Fail2ban. https://www.fail2ban.org. Accessed 14 May 2020

  37. Verificatum. https://www.verificatum.org/. Accessed 14 May 2020

  38. Open STV. https://www.opavote.com/?openstv=1. Accessed 14 May 2020

  39. ElGamal, T.: A public key cryptosystem and a signature scheme based on discrete logarithms. In: Blakley, G.R., Chaum, D. (eds.) CRYPTO 1984. LNCS, vol. 196, pp. 10–18. Springer, Heidelberg (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-39568-7_2

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  40. Pedersen, T.P.: A threshold cryptosystem without a trusted party. In: Davies, Donald W. (ed.) EUROCRYPT 1991. LNCS, vol. 547, pp. 522–526. Springer, Heidelberg (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-46416-6_47

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  41. Fiat, A., Shamir, A.: How to prove yourself: practical solutions to identification and signature problems. In: Odlyzko, Andrew M. (ed.) CRYPTO 1986. LNCS, vol. 263, pp. 186–194. Springer, Heidelberg (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-47721-7_12

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  42. Schnorr, C.P.: Efficient identification and signatures for smart cards. In: Brassard, G. (ed.) CRYPTO 1989. LNCS, vol. 435, pp. 239–252. Springer, New York (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-34805-0_22

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  43. Cortier, V.: Formal verification of e-voting: solutions and challenges. ACM SIGLOG News 2(1), 25–34 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Acemyan, C.Z., Kortum, P., et al.: From error to error: why voters could not cast a ballot and verify their vote with Helios, Pret a Voter and Scantegrity II. Usenix J. Elect. Technol. Syst. (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  45. Juels, A., Catalano, D., Jakobsson, M.: Coercion-resistant electronic elections. In: Chaum, D., Jakobsson, M., Rivest, Ronald L., Ryan, Peter Y.A., Benaloh, J., Kutylowski, M., Adida, B. (eds.) Towards Trustworthy Elections. LNCS, vol. 6000, pp. 37–63. Springer, Heidelberg (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-12980-3_2

    Chapter  MATH  Google Scholar 

  46. Hirt, M., Sako, K.: Efficient receipt-free voting based on homomorphic encryption. In: Preneel, B. (ed.) EUROCRYPT 2000. LNCS, vol. 1807, pp. 539–556. Springer, Heidelberg (2000). https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45539-6_38

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  47. El Español. https://www.elespanol.com/espana/20160511/123987880_0.html. Accessed 15 May 2020

  48. Minutos. https://www.20minutos.es/noticia/2419700/0/podemos-defiende-fiabilidad/sistema-votacion-acusaciones/primarias/. Accessed 15 May 2020

Download references

Acknowledgements

The contribution of Dr. David Duenas-Cid is based upon work supported by the Estonian Research Council grant (PUT 1361 “Internet Voting as Additional Channel for Legally Binding Elections: Challenges to Voting Processes Reengineering”, 2017–2020); and by the Polish National Research Center grant (Miniatura 3 - 2019/03/X/HS6/01688 “Zaufanie do technologii w e-administracji: Powtórna analiza nieudanego wdrożenia elektronicznych maszyn do głosowania w Holandii (2006-07)”).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Leon, Campus de Vegazana, s/n, 24071, León, Spain

    David Yeregui Marcos del Blanco & Héctor Aláiz Moretón

  2. Tallinn University of Technology, Akadeemia tee 3, 12618, Tallinn, Estonia

    David Duenas-Cid & Héctor Aláiz Moretón

  3. Kozminski University, Jagiellonska 57/59, 03-301, Warsaw, Poland

    David Duenas-Cid & Héctor Aláiz Moretón

Authors
  1. David Yeregui Marcos del Blanco
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. David Duenas-Cid
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Héctor Aláiz Moretón
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to David Yeregui Marcos del Blanco .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia

    Robert Krimmer

  2. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

    Melanie Volkamer

  3. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

    Bernhard Beckert

  4. University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany

    Ralf Küsters

  5. University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Oksana Kulyk

  6. Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia

    David Duenas-Cid

  7. University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia

    Mihkel Solvak

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Marcos del Blanco, D.Y., Duenas-Cid, D., Aláiz Moretón, H. (2020). E-Voting System Evaluation Based on the Council of Europe Recommendations: nVotes. In: Krimmer, R., et al. Electronic Voting. E-Vote-ID 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12455. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60347-2_10

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60347-2_10

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-60346-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-60347-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation