An Internet Voting System Fatally Flawed in Creative New Ways

Overview

• Analysis of CAC-Vote/MERGE electronic voting system
• System uses Common Access Cards (CAC) for military personnel voting
• Multiple critical security vulnerabilities discovered
• Demonstrates risks of internet-based voting implementations
• Highlights issues with voter verification and ballot secrecy

Plain English Explanation

The paper examines a proposed internet voting system called CAC-Vote that was designed for military personnel. The system tries to let service members vote securely using their military ID cards (Common Access Cards).

Think of CAC-Vote like trying to mail a letter that needs to stay private, but everyone along the delivery route can peek inside. While the system aims to keep votes secret and verify voters' identities, it has serious security problems that could let attackers see or change votes.

Electoral trust is crucial for democracy, but this system fails to protect it in several ways. The biggest issue is that it can't guarantee ballot secrecy - election officials could potentially see how individuals voted.

Key Findings

The researchers found multiple fatal flaws in the CAC-Vote system:

• Election officials can link voters to their ballot choices
• The system is vulnerable to manipulation by insiders
• Voter verification methods are inadequate
• Privacy preservation mechanisms can be circumvented
• Security depends heavily on voters following complex instructions perfectly

Technical Explanation

The CAC-Vote system uses military Common Access Cards for voter authentication. It attempts to create a secure voting channel through encryption and digital signatures. However, the implementation contains fundamental cryptographic weaknesses.

The system's architecture relies on a problematic mix of public key infrastructure and symmetric encryption. This allows election officials to potentially decrypt and view individual votes while they're being processed.

User experience suffers due to complex verification steps. Voters must perform multiple precise actions to maintain ballot secrecy, making user error likely.

Critical Analysis

The paper reveals several concerning limitations:

• The system assumes voters will perfectly follow complex technical instructions
• No protections against coercion or vote selling
• Relies too heavily on trusting election officials
• Cannot guarantee vote privacy even when used correctly
• E-democracy implementations require stronger security models

The researchers note that fixing individual flaws wouldn't solve the fundamental design problems. The entire approach needs rethinking with security and usability as primary considerations.

Conclusion

CAC-Vote demonstrates why internet voting remains a significant challenge. Despite good intentions, the system fails to provide basic security guarantees needed for democratic elections.

The findings reinforce that internet voting systems require extraordinary scrutiny before deployment. Future designs must prioritize both ballot secrecy and genuine voter verification while remaining simple enough for typical voters to use correctly.