Scratch & vote: self-contained paper-based cryptographic voting

Abstract

We present Scratch & Vote; (S&V), a cryptographic voting system designed to minimize cost and complexity: (1) ballots are paper-based and can be printed using today's technology, (2) ballots are universally verifiable without electionofficial intervention, and (3) tallying requires only one trustee decryption per race, thanks to homomorphic aggregation. Scratch & Vote combines the multi-candidate election techniques of Baudron et al. with the ballot-casting simplicity of Chaum and Ryan's paper-based techniques. In addition, S&V allows each voter to participate directly in the audit process on election day, prior; to casting their own ballot.