DATE: A Decentralized, Anonymous, and Transparent E-voting System

Abstract

A trusted electronic election system requires that all the involved information must go public. However, it focuses not only on transparency but also on privacy issues. In other words, each ballot should be counted anonymously, correctly, and efficiently. In this work, an effective e-voting system is proposed for voters to minimize their trust in the authority or government. We ensure the transparency of election by putting all messages on the Ethereum blockchain; in the meantime, the privacy of individual voter is protected via an effective ring signature mechanism. Besides, the attractive self-tallying feature is also built in our system, which guarantees that everyone who can access the blockchain network is able to tally the result on his own, i.e., no third party is required after the voting phase. More importantly, we ensure the correctness of voting results and keep the Ethereum gas cost of individual participant as low as possible, at the same time. Moreover, the pre-described characteristics of stealth address in our system makes it more suitable for large-scale election on line.