Developing e-voting Tasks Using Quantum Key Distribution

Abstract

E-voting is the process by which representatives of the country (or an organization) are chosen. Everyone has the right to elect candidates who deem fit to lead the country. It must be ensured that the elections are fair and that votes are not manipulated, deleted or changed, or even that voters are forced to vote for candidates they don't want. Some voters do not go to the polls to vote for personal or public reasons. One solution to this problem is electronic voting (e-voting) where it can be voted from anywhere and anytime. On the other hand, quantum cryptography can be defined as one of the special cryptography forms, using quantum mechanics for the purpose of ensuring “unconditional” security. Quantum cryptography can be used for the distribution of random binary keys in Quantum Key Distribution (QKD). The present thesis deals with the security aspect of e-voting by introducing QKD to the e-voting process. This can offer an extremely high level of security that can be very beneficial for some significant e-voting tasks. The work presents software implementation for the integration of the QKD with the e-voting system. Experimental investigation of the main design aspects of building a QKD-based e-voting system has been done based on software simulation. The proposed e-voting system provides the election process integrity concerning the functional requirements as well as the non-functional ones. Indeed, it manages the user detail, candidate detail, and election related details and provides election results efficiently. Experimental results show that QKD-based e-voting is a promising approach for the upcoming significant election tasks.