Voting from Your Sofa Is Secure Enough – but Will It Be Allowed?
This new technology has the potential to change the world, but it comes with security challenges, and many people are working hard to solve them.
The Norwegian National Security Authority believes there is more than a 50 per cent chance that computers capable of cracking current encryption systems will exist in just 10–15 years.
Governments and Criminals Aare Preparing
“This means we need to replace today’s systems with new cryptography. It must have the same properties, but also protect against new attacks. The danger is that if the encrypted votes are stored today, it may be possible to decrypt them in the future. Both cybercriminals and state actors are already preparing for this development by storing encrypted data traffic that they expect to be able to decrypt in the future.”
In addition, if a large quantum computer is available when an election takes place, an attacker could tamper with the results to influence the outcome.
Solving Major Challenges
The researchers at NTNU’s Department of Information Security and Communication Technology believe their system resolves some major challenges:
· It can confirm that only people with the right to vote cast their vote
· It ensures that cast votes cannot be linked to the voters’ identities
· It ensures that the votes can be counted and checked and that the result is correct
Electronically Mixed Votes
All of this is done using an electronic mixer.
“It mixes the votes so they can’t be traced back to the person who cast them. At the same time, we make sure that the mixer does not replace the votes with other information. We have designed a system that makes it possible to verify and prove that everything was done properly,” Silde said.
The result is that electronic elections can be conducted in the same way as today, and without anyone with a quantum computer being able to crack the encryption and learn anything about the votes beyond the actual election result.
“The system can still be improved, but we are the first to show that this is possible and that it is effective enough to be implemented,” Silde said.
Is Paper Still Safest?
E-elections have already been carried out in Norway, both in church elections and in referendums where residents advised politicians on the merging of counties and municipalities, for example. In 2011 and 2013, pilot projects were conducted in some municipalities and counties where electronic voting was included in the official election.
However, the politicians decided not to continue investing in this form of voting. In 2024, a group of experts was asked to assess the impact of AI on ensuring trust in continued democratic elections in Norway. One recommendation among many was to keep paper ballots (in Norwegian) to ensure they can be verified.
Increased Participation and Cost Savings
Both Switzerland and Estonia have reported increased voter turnout and cost savings by conducting purely electronic elections.
But Silde says there’s more to be done before electronic voting comes to Norway.
“This depends on whether the system can be trusted or not. There tends to be a focus on the disadvantages when choosing not to use electronic voting systems. It is natural that we, as one of the world’s most digital societies, consider whether this will be beneficial for us in the future,” said Silde.
Fully Digital Elections in Norway Are Unlikely
Once the system is up and running, conducting an e-election is both cheaper and less challenging. And when it becomes easier to vote, it becomes easier to participate in democratic processes. In addition, votes can be counted faster and more easily than today.
However, the computer expert does not envision Norway switching to fully digital elections.
“Digital voting will be an addition to paper-based voting that can make it cheaper and easier to engage various groups in society,” he said.
References
Patrick Hough, Caroline Sandsbråten, Tjerand Silde: ‘More Efficient Lattice-Based Electronic Voting from NTRU’ IACR Communications in Cryptology.
Diego F. Aranha, Carsten Baum, Kristian Gjøsteen, Tjerand Silde: ‘Verifiable Mix-Nets and Distributed Decryption for Voting from Lattice-Based Assumptions’ ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security.
Diego F. Aranha, Carsten Baum, Kristian Gjøsteen, Tjerand Silde, Thor Tunge: ‘Lattice-Based Proof of Shuffle and Applications to Electronic Voting’ Cryptographers’ Track at the RSA Conference.
Sølvi Normannsen is communication officer and science writer at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology – NTNU.This story is republished courtesy of Norwegian SciTech News.
