Novel Blind Signcryption Scheme for E-Voting System Based on Elliptic Curves

Abstract

To make the electoral process more secure, comfortable, and universal, it is essential to use modern cryptographic techniques for ensuring the anonymity of information in the electronic voting system. In many emerging applications like electronic voting data anonymity as well as un-traceability are the most essential security properties. To ensure these properties we present here in this paper a more secure and comparatively efficient blind signcryption scheme using the Elliptic Curve Cryptosystem (ECC). The existing e-voting schemes are based on El-Gamal and the Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) cryptosystems which are not only expensive approaches but also lack the security features like unlinkability and forward secrecy. In our proposed scheme we use a low-cost elliptic curve cryptosystem with 160 bits key as compared to El-Gamal 2048 bits key and RSA 1024 bits key. In this scheme signer signs the message blindly without knowing the original contents then the voter forward signcrypted vote to polling server. The polling server is the actual voter data verifier or validator. The polling server checks the validity/authenticity of the voter and has the right to accept or reject the vote. Moreover, this scheme offers forward secrecy, unlinkability, and non-repudiation in addition to the basic security features like confidentiality, authenticity, integrity, and unforgeability. Overall performance evaluation proves that our scheme is comparatively more efficient in terms of computational and communicational costs. Furthermore, this scheme is suitable for the e-voting system due to its lower cost and extra security features.