[15321] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: voting
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Ed Gerck)
Mon Apr 19 14:49:12 2004
X-Original-To: cryptography@metzdowd.com
X-Original-To: cryptography@metzdowd.com
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 00:55:02 -0700
From: Ed Gerck <egerck@nma.com>
To: Yeoh Yiu <squid@panix.com>
Cc: David Jablon <dpj@theworld.com>,
John Kelsey <kelsey.j@ix.netcom.com>,
"Trei, Peter" <ptrei@rsasecurity.com>, cypherpunks@al-qaeda.net,
cryptography@metzdowd.com,
"'privacy.at Anonymous Remailer'" <mixmaster@remailer.privacy.at>
Yeoh Yiu wrote:
>
> Ed Gerck <egerck@nma.com> writes:
>
> > The 'second law' also takes precedence: ballots are always secret, only
> > vote totals are known and are known only after the election ends.
>
> You get totals per nation, per state, per county, per riding,
> per precinct, per polling stion and maybe per ballot box.
The lowest possible totals are per race, per ballot box. The
'second law' allows you to have such totals -- which are
the election results for that race in that ballot box. For
example, if there are two candidates (X and Y) in race A ,
two candidates (Z and W) in race B, and only one vote per
candidate is allowed in each race, the election results for
ballot box K might be:
Vote totals for race A in ballot box K:
Votes for candidate X: 5
Votes for candidate Y: 60
Blank votes: 50
Vote totals for race B in ballot box K:
Votes for candidate Z: 45
Votes for candidate W: 50
Blank votes: 20
Total ballots in ballot box K: 115
Because only the vote totals are known for each race, a
voter cannot be identified by recognizing a pre-defined,
unlikely voting pattern in each race of a ballot. This
exemplifies one reason why we need the 'second law' -- to
preserve unlinkability between ballots and voters.
> So there's a need to design the system to have more voters
> than ballot boxes to conform to your second law.
No. All you need is that there should be more than one voter
per ballot box. This is a rather trivial requirement to meet.
Cheers,
Ed Gerck
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