Auditing Voting Systems While Preserving Secrecy and Anonymity

选举审计验证系统和程序是否按预期工作，以及选票是否被正确计算。 如果出现问题，取证技术使审计人员能够确定发生了什么以及如何在可能的情况下进行补偿。 目前的审计跟踪记录了不完整的信息，或不必要的信息，从而阻碍了验证选举结果和过程的正确性，以及确定问题的原因和影响。使这两项任务复杂化的是，用于分析失败的审计跟踪可能包含暴露选民身份的信息（例如，允许选民胁迫）;或者向第三方传达信息（允许投票出售）。 该项目的目标是确定所需的信息，以评估整个选举过程，特别是电子投票机，是否以所需的保证程度运作，特别是在匿名和隐私方面。 该项目还试图描述支持电子投票机的基础设施必须满足的要求。 它反映了一种在真实的环境中发现、分析和平衡安全性、可验证性、隐私性和匿名性的新方法。加州的真实的选举过程将被用于测试方法的实用性和知识的传播。 鉴于选举官员的参与，以及对真实的投票程序和系统的分析，该项目的预期成果包括更好地了解投票机制造商、选举官员、法医分析师和研究人员对选举的审计要求和程序。

Election auditing verifies that the systems and procedures work as intended, and that the votes have been counted correctly. If a problem arises, forensic techniques enable auditors to determine what happened and how to compensate if possible. Current audit trails record incomplete information, or unnecessary information, thereby hindering validation of the election results and the correctness of the process, and determination of the causes and effects of problems.Complicating both tasks is that the audit trails enabling analysis of failures may contain information that either exposes the identity of the voter (enabling voter coercion, for example); or that communicates a message to a third party (enabling vote selling). The goal of this project is to determine the information needed to assess whether the election process in general, and e-voting machines in particular, operate with the desired degree of assurance, especially with respect to anonymity and privacy. This project also seeks to describe the requirements that an infrastructure supporting e-voting machines must meet. It reflects a novel approach to discovering, analyzing, and balancing security, auditability, privacy, and anonymity in a real environment. Real election processes in California will be used to test practicality of the approach and dissemination of knowledge. Given the involvement of the election officials, and the analysis of real voting procedures and systems, the anticipated outcome of this project include a better understanding of auditing requirements and processes for elections by voting machine manufacturers, election officials, forensic analysts, and researchers.