On the Independent Verification of a Punchscan Election

Abstract

Punchscan is a cryptographic voting system providing full transparency throughout the entire election process: a mandatory pre-election public audit, a mandatory post-election public audit, and the ability for a voter to check the correct printing and recorded marks on a paper receipt she keeps. Even though a voter can verify that her vote is counted as she cast it, the ballot receipt does not contain enough information to show someone else how she voted. These unique properties produce a system with a voluntary and universally available process that establishes an overwhelmingly high statistical degree of confidence in the integrity of the outcome—in other words, they allow for unparalleled independent verification of election results. These ideas are new and have the potential to radically change the way we think about and build the voting systems of the future.