E-Voting: A New Approach Using Double-Blind Identity-Based Encryption

We present a novel approach to e-voting for elections, based on a new cryptographic construction, double-blind identity based encryption (IBE). In standard IBE, the identity string that is passed to a key generation centre (KGC) during the key extraction phase is visible to the KGC. Recent work introduced the notion of blinding the identity string, resulting in a private key generation protocol which obscures the identity string from a KGC. A double-blind IBE scheme is an extension of blind IBE schemes. It allows a user to construct an identity string that is partially obscured, with certain elements visible to the KGC while enabling the KGC to add elements to the user constructed string which are obscured from the user. The contribution of this paper is a new protocol for e-voting using double-blind IBE that adheres to conventional security criteria for e-voting schemes. Our protocol provides end-to-end verifiability. We also contribute a plaintext voter receipt and an audit trail, using receipts.