End-to-End Voting with Non-Permissioned and Permissioned Ledgers

We propose a decentralised end-to-end voting platform (from voter to candidate) based on the block-chain technology. In particular, we study and exploit both the non-permissioned ledger of Bitcoin, and the MultiChain permissioned ledger. We describe the main architectural choices behind the two implementations, including the pre-voting and post-voting phases. Similar approaches are not as decentralised as our application, where it is possible to directly cast a vote to the block-chain, without any intermediate level. Benefits and drawbacks of each implementation are explained. The Bitcoin block-chain consists in a large number of already available nodes in the related peer-to-peer network; moreover, its reliability and resistance to attacks are also well established. With MultiChain we instead exploit a fine-grained permission system: MultiChain is a permissioned public ledger. Hence, with it we can also satisfy two more properties of end-to-end voting systems: uncoercibility and receipt-freeness and data confidentiality and neutrality. Moreover, we can avoid costs and price fluctuations related to Bitcoin.