Enabling the Application of Open Systems like PCs for Online Voting

An increasing number of elections have been performed using Online Voting. Due to these experiences, the technical research topics have changed: While voting protocols have been well analysed in the past, now, the security and trustworthiness of the client platforms come to the fore. Malware could cause arbitrary damages regardless how secure the underlying voting scheme is. Moreover, corrupt voters can overcome the receipt-freeness of many protocols by manipulating their voting client (PC). Currently, the client side is mainly protected by organizational measures imposed on the voters, largely ignoring the issue of corrupt voters. However, since elections are the very basis of democracy, verifiable technical solutions are essential. Therefore, we examine the necessary properties of a trustworthy client which both protect the voters from malware and the voting system from corrupt voters. Our approach is based on Trusted Computing in combination with a secure operating system. We show that other existing voting protocols can be implemented on the top of our approach as well as a significantly simplified voting scheme by still retaining the required properties.