Digital Forensic Readiness Model for Internet Voting

Abstract

Voting is an exercise of choosing a preferred candidate through a process called an election. In many countries, this exercise is a basic human right. In every election process, there are some pre-requisite processes and procedures which must be set up first. These are essential in the pre-vote-casting stage, during vote-casting and post-vote-casting stage. Electoral disagreements amongst stakeholders and parties of interest are usually experienced in each of the above-mentioned voting process stages. The main points of conflict in an election process are vote rigging and vote fraud. Failure to amicably mitigate these issues can result in a criticised/rejected election result. Therefore, this research aims to address the problem of vote rigging and vote fraud allegations in an election process. The resolution thereof is achieved through the introduction of an online based voting system which is supported by a digital forensic readiness mechanism. Online voting system gives citizens the flexibility to use internet-enabled devices such as cell phones and laptops to cast their votes in a safe, secrete and secure protocol. To address the problem of vote rigging and vote fraud, the online voting system is integrated with cyber security and vote protection mechanisms. The cyber security and vote protection mechanism is based on Blockchain algorithms. A Blockchain-based voting process is a peer-to-peer mechanism where a decentralised database is used to store data. Tokens move directly from one peer (voter) to another peer (candidate). The results are tallied by counting the number of tokens paid to each candidate. Each voter is allocated a Bitcoin token and each candidate is allocated a Bitcoin address. During vote casting, the voter transfers their Bitcoin token into the wallet of a registered candidate. At the end of the voting process, the total number of Bitcoin tokens transferred to each candidate is counted and tallied up. The wallet is loaded with only one Bitcoin token, hence there is no possibility of double voting. The model ensures vote security, anonymity, auditability, accountability, accuracy and uniqueness.