Proof of Work and Secure Element in Electronic Voting

Abstract

Electronic voting consistently fails to supplant conventional paper ballot due to a plethora of security shortcomings. Not only are traditional voting methods mediocre in terms of transparency, audit, and costs, but they also encompass a principal-agent problem, where acting governments have real capability for tampering. Here I propose Proof of Work by user devices to fortify integrity of votes as cast and seed-isolated time-based one-time passwords to force observable polling stations. Coupled with end-to-end verifiability, the measures proposed are intended to improve on the issues mentioned. A state would only issue single-use authorizations to vote, while an untrusted publisher would collect and publish two unrelatable lists; votes and voters. Eventually, anyone could tabulate results. Content distribution networks are shown to be instrumental security providers. Weaknesses of proposed architecture are also discussed.