Postal Voting Electronic Labels for Anonymous Ballot Validation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Postal voting systems face challenges in ensuring security, integrity, anonymity, and preventing double voting, while maintaining confidentiality of the vote.
Innovation Solution
A method and device for postal voting that utilizes an electronic label associated with a voting ballot, incorporating a memory to store a validation code, which is encrypted with a unique voting number, ensuring anonymity and preventing double voting by associating a single voting number with a user, and using a counting system to verify the correspondence between the validation code and the ballot.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a postal voting system uses electronic labels with validation codes to ensure vote integrity and prevent double voting, then voting security and reliability are improved, but the system complexity and difficulty of implementation increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an electronic label as an intermediary component between the voter, the validation server, and the counting system. The electronic label contains a validation code that mediates the verification process, allowing the system to ensure vote integrity without requiring direct complex communication between all system components. This intermediary simplifies the overall system architecture while maintaining security.
Solution Approach 2:
The validation code is generated and stored in the electronic label before the voting process occurs. This preliminary action ensures that the security mechanism is already in place when the voter receives the ballot, eliminating the need for complex real-time validation during the voting process itself. The validation server pre-processes the security requirements, reducing system complexity during actual voting.
2Loss of information
If the system encrypts validation codes to guarantee voter anonymity, then confidentiality is improved, but the measurement and verification precision required increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses the validation code as a copy mechanism that links the electronic label to the voter's vote without revealing the voter's identity. The validation server creates and stores a copy of the validation code, which is then embedded in the electronic label. This copying approach allows verification of vote validity while maintaining anonymity, as the code itself carries all necessary verification information without containing personal identifiers.
Solution Approach 2:
The system transforms the validation code through encryption, changing its parameter state from readable to encrypted form. This parameter change ensures that the code cannot be reverse-engineered to reveal voter identity, while still maintaining its functional properties for validation. The encryption transforms the code into a form that is precise for verification purposes but opaque for identity revelation.
3Reliability
If the system associates a single voting number with each user to prevent double voting, then voting integrity is improved, but the ease of operation for voters decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The electronic label performs self-service by automatically containing and presenting the validation code when needed. The voter does not need to manually manage or remember their voting number; instead, the validation code is embedded in the electronic label and automatically provided to the counting system during verification. This self-service approach maintains voting integrity through unique identification while preserving voter convenience by eliminating manual number management.
Data Source
AI summary
The postal voting method (30) includes:a step (31) of connecting a user terminal to a first server,a step (32) of authenticating the user of the user terminal by the first server, and associating a single voting number to the user,a step (33) of storing by a second server, the user's voting number,a step (34) of transmitting, by the second server to the user terminal, a ballot validation code,a step (36) of registering, by the user terminal in an electronic label, information representative of the ballot validation code,a step (38) of transmitting, by the second server to a counting of votes system, a ballot validation element,by the counting of votes system, for each voting ballot associated with an electronic label, a step (39) of reading the information representative of the validation code in said electronic label anda step (40) of verifying correspondence between the information representative of the validation code read and the validation element received by the counting system and, only if this verification is positive, a step of taking account of the ballot associated with said electronic label.