Physical Cryptographic Signatures for Absentee Ballots
This addresses the issue of inconsistent and unreliable signature verification in absentee voting for election officials and voters, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing cryptographic methods.
The paper tackles the problem of verifying physical signatures on absentee ballots, which caused disputes in U.S. elections, by proposing a cryptographic solution that is usable, secure, and easily integrated into existing election infrastructure.
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.