Mix and Test Counting in Preferential Electoral Systems

Although there is a substantial body of work on online voting schemes that prevent bribery and coercion of voters, as yet there are few suitable schemes for counting in the alternative vote and single transferable vote preferential systems. Preferential systems are prone to bribery and coercion via signature attacks. This is an issue for online elections in Australia, where all parliamentary elections use these preferential systems. We present the Mix and Test Counting scheme, a preferential counting protocol that is resistant to signature attacks. For the alternative vote, it reveals no information apart from the identity of the winning candidate. For the single transferable vote, it reveals additional anonymised counting information. However the only candidates identified are the winning candidates.

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