OpenVoting: Recoverability from Failures in Dual Voting
Abstract
In this paper we address the problem of recovery from failures without re-running entire elections when elections fail to verify. We consider the setting of dual voting protocols, where the cryptographic guarantees of end-to-end verifiable voting (E2E-V) are combined with the simplicity of audit using voter-verified paper records (VVPR). We first consider the design requirements of such a system and then suggest a protocol called OpenVoting, which identifies a verifiable subset of error-free votes consistent with the VVPRs, and the polling booths corresponding to the votes that fail to verify with possible reasons for the failures. To an ordinary voter OpenVoting looks just like an old fashioned paper based voting system, with minimal additional cognitive overload.