Security Aspects of Internet Voting

Voting via the Internet has become a feasible option for political as well as non-political ballots. However, there are many obstacles which have to be overcome, especially legal restrictions have to be transformed into technical and security solutions. The article starts with a brief presentation of advantages and disadvantages of Internet ballots and presents application fields and pilot schemes. Then, technological security aspects are derived due to democratic basic principles. Especially the applied voting procedures are critical in security terms. Hence, the most relevant cryptographic protocols are presented and their drawbacks and shortcomings are identified. However, this article does not propose a new voting protocol. Beyond fixing cryptographic procedures for ballots, more elements are to be specified, e.g. responsibilities and rights of involved authorities or security precautions regarding hardware and software. For this reason, a structural security framework for electronic voting systems is presented which can be used for their composition and analysis.