Matthew Bernhard

Matthew Bernhard

Physical signature verification on absentee ballots became a major flashpoint in the 2018 midterm elections in the United States, especially in states like Georgia, Florida, and Arizona, where close election margins resulted in heightened attention to the counting of absentee ballots. As vote-by-mail solutions are becoming more prevalent across the U.S., these issues are sure to continue affecting elections in the United States. Signature verification is an inexact science; often times guidelines can vary widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In this paper we provide a cryptographic remedy to this solution that is usable, secure, and easily integrated into existing election infrastructure.

Matthew Bernhard, Josh Benaloh, J. Alex Halderman et al.

Elections seem simple---aren't they just counting? But they have a unique, challenging combination of security and privacy requirements. The stakes are high; the context is adversarial; the electorate needs to be convinced that the results are correct; and the secrecy of the ballot must be ensured. And they have practical constraints: time is of the essence, and voting systems need to be affordable and maintainable, and usable by voters, election officials, and pollworkers. It is thus not surprising that voting is a rich research area spanning theory, applied cryptography, practical systems analysis, usable security, and statistics. Election integrity involves two key concepts: convincing evidence that outcomes are correct and privacy, which amounts to convincing assurance that there is no evidence about how any given person voted. These are obviously in tension. We examine how current systems walk this tightrope.