SECURITY/ADVANTAGES/FEATURES OF USING AN ONLINE/MOBILE VOTING SYSTEM

Voting is a vital part of a democratic system and as such, the efficiency, reliability and

security of the technologies involved are critical. This literature review seeks to identify,

interpret and evaluate existing literature on published materials to establish current knowledge

of the security features and advantages of using a mobile/on-line voting systems. According to

(Kumar, Kumar & Geetha,) electronic voting (e-voting) offers multiple advantage over

traditional paper based voting advantage that increases/encourages participation.

These include;

Reduced cost – the cost of resources will be reduced, specifically for internet based voting.

Increased participation and voting options – offers convenience to voters, encourages more

voters to cast votes remotely and increasing the likelihood of participation for mobile voters.

It also permits access to more information regarding voting options.

Speed and accuracy in placing and counting votes – e-voting helps to minimize the process

of miscast votes. The electronic gathering and counting of ballots reduces the amount of time

spent tallying votes and delivering results.

Using a GSM mobile network system (GSM); according to security features of using a GSM

mobile network includes;

• Subscriber identity confidentiality - the subscriber’s real identity remains a secret by

protecting the International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI), the IMSI is an internal

identity used only by the network.

 • Subscriber identity authentication – ensures that the mobile subscriber who is

accessing the service is the one claimed.

• Data confidentiality – ensures that user information is not disclosed to unauthorized

individuals, entities or processes.

In a mobile voting scheme proposed by (Feng, Ng et al., 2006) in 2006; security mechansism such as;

digital signature, blind signature and bit-commitment. These mechanisms uses primitive

cryptographic elements.

• Digital signature – used for authentication, authorization and non-repudiation. It binds a

message and a secret known only to the signer in a way that the public can verify that the

message has been signed by the signer without knowledge of the message.

• Blind signature – this is described as a signature scheme with special functionality where the

signer has no knowledge of the message she /he signs and the signature. Therefore the signed

message cannot be associated with the sender.

• Bit-commitment – the basic component of many cryptographic protocols.

(Feng, Ng et al., 2006) outlined a list of voting requirements for a mobile voting system;

• Democracy – all and only the authorized person can vote, an each eligible voter can vote no

more than once.

• Privacy – all votes should remain confidential while voting takes place and each individual

vote cannot be linked to any individual or authority to the voter who cast it.
• Accuracy – the voting results should reflect the voters choices, no vote should be altered,

duplicated o eliminated without being detected.

• Fairness – no partial result should be available before the final results comes out.

• Verifiability – two rule of thumbs are listed; individual verifiability and universal verifiability.

• Recoverability – in the event of a failure, mistake or cheating is detected, there should be

proper methods and procedures and information available to help recover the voting system.
Reference

Manish Kumar, T.V kumar,m. Hanumanthappa & D. Geetha (????) Secure Mobile Based voting

System

An electronic voting system using GSM mobile technology, Yang Feng,Siaw-Lynn Ng and Scarlett

Grosche.