Quantegrity E-Voting System lets Quantum-Resistant Elections
Quantum Cryptography Transforms E-Voting Security Against New Threats
Quantegrity E-Voting System
Electronic voting (e-voting) systems are subject to tampering, hostile attacks, and privacy violations notwithstanding their efficiency and ease. Quantum computing, which threatens RSA and elliptic curve encryption, is predicted to worsen these risks. Due to the processing power of quantum computers, which use Shor's algorithm, quantum-resistant and quantum-enhanced security measures for digital elections are needed.
In response, current research has developed the Quantegrity E-Voting System and a Quantum-Secure Voting Framework with Dual-Key Symmetric Encryption. Quantum mechanics is used in both frameworks to develop systems that withstand classical and quantum attacks.
Quantum Key Distribution Secures Digital Elections
Both quantum frameworks rely on Quantum Key Distribution (QKD). QKD is an unconditionally secure encryption key allocation method that uses quantum physics to prevent eavesdropping. The parties will be informed of any faults produced by an adversary intercepting and measuring photons or entangled qubits. Security comes from quantum ideas like the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and no-cloning theorem.
QKD systems like BB84 (Benton and Brassard, 1984) and E91 (Arthur Ekert) use these properties to generate a shared random secret key only the two communicating parties know. Voting confidentiality and integrity depend on this capacity.
Quantegrity: Quantum Oracle Hybrid System
Viduranga Shenal Landers introduced the Quantegrity e-voting system, a hybrid quantum-classical system that integrates the QKD protocol SEDJO with the Scantegrity voting system.
The Quantegrity system has four main components: a voter system, an Election Authority (EA) system, a voting server that runs Scantegrity, and a QKD service that generates and distributes keys. Entanglement and quantum oracles like the Deutsch-Jozsa method generate shared secret keys in the SEDJO protocol.
In Quantegrity, quantum Random Number Generators (QRNGs) leverage quantum systems' inherent unpredictability to generate one-time passwords (OTPs), random keys, and voter IDs. SEDJO allows safe authentication by forcing a voter (Alice) to produce a new shared key with an EA official (Bob) using a decrypted quantum key from their biometric information and voter ID card. Because this method requires voters to use their voter ID card, biometric signature, and registered device, mass attacks are unusual.
Quantegrity uses optical scan paper ballots with invisible ink confirmation codes to make Scantegrity resistant to classical and quantum attacks.
Dual-Key Framework: Symmetric Encryption Efficiency
Another notable innovation is Taha M. Mahmoud and Naima Kaabouch's Quantum-Secure Voting Framework. Dual-key symmetric encryption, verifiable receipts, and QKD (BB84 protocol) are used in this system.
A symmetric key between the voter and Election Committee is created using QKD. A simple bitwise XOR encrypts the vote and voter ID. Privacy-protecting Dual-Key Symmetric Encryption for vote tallying is a breakthrough. Instead of the computationally intensive Fully Homomorphic Encryption, this technique encrypts the vote and voter ID separately using two QKD keys. The server only uses the key to decode and count votes; the voter's identity is encrypted and can only be accessible in an audit or dispute. This dual-key method simulates homomorphic tallying while reducing computing.
Transparency is achieved through receipts. The voter receives a SHA-256 hash of the concatenated encrypted vote and ID from the server after receiving the encrypted vote. This hash is compared to a local hash to verify registration without disclosing the vote.
The system was tested using MQTT to simulate communication channels and prove it could process big vote numbers with minimum delay.
Future deployment and challenges
Quantum-secure systems offer promise in security and verifiability, but they must overcome barriers before being employed in elections. Practical implementation requires scalable, reliable quantum channels and infrastructure. Quantum repeaters and satellite-based communication systems are being developed, however distance and node count limit QKD networks.