Re: Vote verification --- a futile exercise?

["John H. Robinson, IV" <jhriv@ucsd.edu>]

On Wed, Apr 03, 2002 at 01:58:36PM -0500, Jeff Licquia wrote:
> On Wed, 2002-04-03 at 12:48, John H. Robinson, IV wrote:
> > On Wed, Apr 03, 2002 at 12:16:18AM -0500, Anthony DeRobertis wrote:
> > > 
> > > 	5) Each voter can verify the correctness of his vote
> > > 	8) No voter can prove to another person how he voted.
> > 
> > these two seem mutually exclusive.
> 
> It's theoretically possible to satisfy both goals at once.  (Whether
> it's practically possible is another matter; it's been a while since
> I've real _Applied Cryptography_.)

i've never read it. perhaps i should put that on my to-read list.

so how can we facilitate 5, while keeping 8 true?

in our current scheme, we have the entire list of votes.

so say i voted 2341, and you voted 2341, and a third person voted 1234.

we get the following tallies:

   1234
   2341
   4321

we both see that our vote was tallied, and counted properly (yes, this
is the exact situation that we saw before ;) both of our names are
listed, and we see that the number of voters match the number of votes.
however, there is an extra vote, 4321, that does not match anyone.

i cannot prove that the 2341 is mine, just as youcannot prove that it is
yours, only that it matches what we voted. so the secret tokens came
along, with our logins as the salt, so we can correlate conclusively.

this is why, on the surface, i believe points 5 and 8 are mutually
exclusive:

with no identifying marks, all identicle votes are indistiguishable.

in a paper puch ballot, at least in my voting district, you get a little
receipt with a number, that number matches the number on the ballot
itself. the only way to prove how i voted is to match my little recepit
with the paper ballot locked away somewhere (yes, for those interested,
i ensured i had no hanging or swinging chads ;). of course, i could not
prove to my own satisfaction that my vote was actually counted :(

-john


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