Abstract Quantum voting allows us to design voting scheme by quantum mechanics. The existing quantum voting protocols (QVPs) mainly use quantum entangled states. However, the existing protocols consider the problem of repeated voting and tampered voting by malicious voters, and hybrid QVPs have not been discussed. In this paper, we use EFI pairs (Entity-Friendly Integer pairs) instead of quantum entangled states to address the shortage of existing protocols, and propose a new QVP. Our protocol is structured to avoid repeated voting by any voter, and can prevent the leakage of voters’ voting information. The security of our protocol can be finally reduced to a classical assumption i.e. BQP = QMA. In addition, compared with the existing results, our protocol has fewer interaction rounds. Combined with post-quantum key distribution, we further optimize the protocol to prevent malicious adversaries from interfering with the final voting results. Moreover, we use extended noisy trapdoor claw-free function (ENTCF) to construct the first hybrid QVP, which allows a classical voter to interact with a quantum center through a classical channel to complete the voting process.
Abstract Quantum voting allows us to design voting scheme by quantum mechanics. The existing quantum voting protocols (QVPs) mainly use quantum entangled states. However, the existing protocols consider the problem of repeated voting and tampered voting by malicious voters, and hybrid QVPs have not been discussed. In this paper, we use EFI pairs (Entity-Friendly Integer pairs) instead of quantum entangled states to address the shortage of existing protocols, and propose a new QVP. Our protocol is structured to avoid repeated voting by any voter, and can prevent the leakage of voters’ voting information. The security of our protocol can be finally reduced to a classical assumption i.e. BQP = QMA. In addition, compared with the existing results, our protocol has fewer interaction rounds. Combined with post-quantum key distribution, we further optimize the protocol to prevent malicious adversaries from interfering with the final voting results. Moreover, we use extended noisy trapdoor claw-free function (ENTCF) to construct the first hybrid QVP, which allows a classical voter to interact with a quantum center through a classical channel to complete the voting process.
There is no quantum election protocol that can fulfil the eight requirements of an electronic election protocol, i.e., completeness, robustness, privacy, legality, unreusability, fairness, verifiability, and receipt-freeness. To address this issue, we employ the general construction of quantum digital signature and quantum public key encryption, in conjunction with classic public key encryption, to develop and instantiate a general construction of quantum election protocol. The proposed protocol exhibits the following advantages: (i) no pre-shared key between any two participants is required, and no trusted third party or anonymous channels are required. The protocol is suitable for large-scale elections with numerous candidates and voters and accommodates the situation in which multiple voters vote simultaneously. (ii) It is the first protocol that dismantles the contradiction between verifiability and receipt-freeness in a quantum election protocol. It satisfies all eight requirements stated earlier under the physical assumptions that there exists a one-way untappable channel from the administrator to the voter and that there is no collusion between any of the three parties in the protocol. Compared with current election protocols with verifiability and receipt-freeness, this protocol relies upon fewer physical assumptions. (iii) This construction is flexible and can be instantiated into an election scheme having post-quantum security by applying cryptographic algorithms conveying post-quantum security. Moreover, utilizing quantum digital signature and public key encryption yields a good result: the transmitted ballots are in quantum states, so owing to the no-cloning theorem, ballot privacy is less likely to be compromised, even if private keys of the signature and public key encryption are leaked after the election. However, in existing election protocols employing classic digital signatures and public key encryption, ballot privacy can be easily violated if attackers obtain private keys. Thus, our construction enhances privacy.
In a traditional voting system, voters have to reach the voting system to cast their votes. It is difficult for the elderly and for those living in remote localities to cast a vote. In the era of digital advancements, remote electronic voting has emerged as an efficient means of engaging citizens in decision-making processes. However, ensuring fairness and mitigating fraud in elections remain significant challenges. This research paper proposes a novel approach called Quantum Secret Sharing (QSS) combined with the quantum binary voting protocol, leveraging the capabilities of the IBM Quantum Experience platform. By incorporating established security features and introducing new criteria, this protocol aims to surpass the limitations of classical voting systems. The research involves the creation of communication circuits using IBM Quantum Experience and subsequent analysis through quantum state tomography. By integrating the principles of QSS and the quantum binary voting protocol, the proposed approach addresses the limitations of classical voting systems. The protocol satisfies the standards of traditional voting systems while introducing new criteria to overcome their shortcomings. Through the utilization of IBM Quantum Experience, secure communication circuits are established, and the outcomes are analyzed using quantum state tomography, ensuring the fairness and accuracy of the voting process. It integrates quantum cryptography, quantum communication, and classical cryptography techniques to create a robust and tamper-resistant voting protocol. By employing quantum superposition, the protocol enables voters to cast their votes in multiple states simultaneously, making it extremely difficult for a malicious person to intercept or alter individual votes. Furthermore, quantum entanglement ensures that any unauthorized attempt to measure or manipulate the quantum states would result in detectable changes, enhancing the overall security of the voting process.
In the age of digital transformation, the integrity and security of online voting systems have become a growing concern. Traditional cryptography methods are vulnerable to advances in quantum computing, demanding the need for more secure alternatives. This paper explores the application of quantum cryptography in enhancing the security of blockchain-based voting systems, a decentralized and transparent approach to conduct elections. We introduce a novel quantum-resistant voting protocol that integrates Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) with post-quantum cryptographic algorithms, ensuring secure voter authentication, vote casting, and tallying. The methodology combines quantum encryption with blockchain's immutability to create a tamper-proof voting ledger, preventing unauthorized access and vote manipulation. It gives an analysis of potential real-world implementations, positioning a hybrid quantum-blockchain framework as a promising solution for future secure electronic voting systems.
The rapid advancement of internet technology has raised attention to the importance of electronic voting in maintaining democracy and fairness in elections. E-voting refers to the use of electronic technology to facilitate the casting and counting of votes in elections. The need for designated verification arises from concerns about voter privacy, auditability, and the prevention of manipulation. Traditional e-voting systems use cryptographic techniques for security but lack verifiable proof of integrity. Integrating e-voting with a quantum designated verifier could address these challenges by leveraging the principles of quantum mechanics to enhance security and trustworthiness. In light of this, we propose a quantum e-voting scheme that uses a designated verifier signature. To ensure the confidentiality and authenticity of the voting process, the scheme uses quantum features like the no-cloning theorem and quantum key distribution. The proposed scheme has security properties like source hiding, non-transferability, and message anonymity. The proposed scheme is resistant to many quantum attacks, such as eavesdropping and impersonation. Due to designated verification, the scheme minimizes the risk of tempering. This paper provides a detailed description of the proposed scheme and analyzes its security properties. Therefore, the proposed scheme is efficient, practical, and secure.
Electronic voting (e-voting) has emerged as a transformative technology in the modern digital era. Many countries across the world are using e-voting systems in different types of elections, from political to non-political. One of the primary goals of e-voting is ensuring both verifiability and privacy simultaneously, which we refer to as security. Verifiability is a security feature that guarantees voters can confirm their vote is reflected in the final election result, while privacy guarantees that no one is able to link a vote to the voter who cast it. Verifiability needs to hold only for the duration of the election, whereas privacy needs to extend beyond the election period, even decades after the election. This property, known as everlasting privacy in the literature, ensures that even computationally unbounded adversaries cannot compromise voter privacy, securing elections against future advances in computing, including quantum computing. Researchers have proposed a wide variety of protocols to achieve this ambitious goal in secure e-voting, however, these protocols differ significantly, making the analysis and state-of-the-art complicated. In this thesis, we first address this fragmentation by systematically analyzing all existing e-voting protocols designed to ensure everlasting privacy. We map out the relationships and dependencies among these protocols, evaluate their security and efficiency under realistic assumptions, and identify unresolved challenges in the field. Our work provides a foundational reference for researchers aiming to design secure e-voting systems with everlasting privacy, paving the way for privacypreserving elections in the post-quantum era. Building on these insights, we propose a novel e-voting system that integrates the best practices from prior research while addressing their limitations. Leveraging the Hyperion scheme as a foundation, we develop an enhanced protocol that not only guarantees everlasting privacy but also introduces everlasting receipt-freeness and coercion mitigation. Unlike existing systems like Selene and Hyperion, which rely on computational assumptions for privacy, our protocol offers privacy even against adversaries with unlimited computational power. In secure electronic voting systems with everlasting privacy, the focus is on futureproofing privacy, while sometimes election verifiability relies on the computational soundness of zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP), which are vulnerable to quantum adversaries. Therefore, a key technical challenge is designing e-voting systems with efficient post-quantum cryptographic primitives to secure both privacy and verifiability against quantum attacks. In this thesis, we advance the state of post-quantum ZKPs by focusing on the ZKPs proposed by Jain et al., which are based on the conservative Learning Parity with Noise (LPN) assumption. We optimize the efficiency of these ZKPs, achieve formal security verification using EasyCrypt, and uncover flaws in existing implementations, demonstrating their vulnerability to malicious provers. Additionally, we construct the first code-based ZKP of shuffle, enabling a verifiable and privacy-preserving e-voting protocol with mixing-based tallying. Our e-voting system ensures both verifiability and vote privacy through the computational difficulty of decoding random linear codes, marking it as the first verifiable code-based e-voting system.
We describe quantum protocols for voting and surveying. A key feature of our schemes is the use of entangled states to ensure that the votes are anonymous and to allow the votes to be tallied. The entanglement is distributed over separated sites; the physical inaccessibility of any one site is sufficient to guarantee the anonymity of the votes. The security of these protocols with respect to various kinds of attack is discussed. We also discuss classical schemes and show that our quantum voting protocol represents a N-fold reduction in computational complexity, where N is the number of voters.