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A hybrid approach to vector-based homomorphic tallying remote voting

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Abstract

Vector-based homomorphic tallying remote voting schemes provide an efficient protocol for vote tallying, but they require voters to prove in zero-knowledge that the ballots they cast have been properly generated. This is usually achieved by means of the so-called zero-knowledge range proofs, which should be verified by the polling station before tallying. In this paper, we present an end-to-end verifiable hybrid proposal in which ballots are proven to be correct by making use of a zero-knowledge proof of mixing but still using a homomorphic tallying for gathering the election results. Our proposal offers all the advantages of the homomorphic tallying paradigm, while it avoids the elevated computational cost of range proofs. As a result, ballot verification performance is improved in comparison with the equivalent homomorphic systems. The proposed voting scheme is suitable for multi-candidate elections as well as for elections in which the votes have different weights.

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Notes

  1. Our description assumes the elliptic ElGamal cryptosystem is being used.

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge partial support by the Spanish Government under Projects CSD2007-0004, IPT-2012-0603-430000 and MTM2013-46949-P, and by the Government of Catalonia under Grant 2014SGR-1666.

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Correspondence to Víctor Mateu.

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Mateu, V., Miret, J.M. & Sebé, F. A hybrid approach to vector-based homomorphic tallying remote voting. Int. J. Inf. Secur. 15, 211–221 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10207-015-0279-8

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