Electronic voting: algorithmic and implementation issues

Electronic transactions over the Internet, particularly using the World Wide Web have become an integral part of economic life. Recently also the public sector has started to use the new medium for its administrative processes. This paper analyses several approaches to implement an electronic voting system and discusses them with a view to voter anonymity and protection from manipulations. The paper then develops an algorithm designed to guarantee anonymity of the voter and to avoid the risk of manipulation of votes. The algorithm is based upon the strict separation of voter registration and submission of votes, which implies that certain information has to be stored on a secure media. The paper discusses the security criteria and possible implementation options for such secure storage.