@unpublished{PSNR20,
    replaced-by =  { PSNR21 },
    author = { Sunoo Park and Michael Specter and Neha Narula and Ronald L. Rivest },
    title = { Going from Bad to Worse: from Internet Voting to Blockchain Voting },
    date = { 2020-11-06 },
    OPTyear = { 2020 },
    OPTmonth = { November 6, },
    note = {(DRAFT of 11/6/2020)},                  
    abstract = {   The public is worried about election security ---
  understandably, and perhaps more today than in recent memory.
  The news teems with reports of possible election interference by foreign powers,
  of unauthorized voting on the one hand and 
  voter disenfranchisement on the other, and of technological failures 
  calling into question the integrity of elections in the U.S. and
  elsewhere in the world.
\par
  Some have advocated ``voting over the Internet'' or ``voting on the blockchain''
  as promising ways to increase election security. This paper examines such 
  claims, and finds them both wanting and misleading. Even taking into account 
  the many imperfections of election systems in use today,
  Internet- and blockchain-based voting would drastically increase the
  potential for catastrophic, undetectable, nation-scale election failures.
\par
  The intuitive appeal of online voting arises partly from the perceived 
  convenience and accessibility of voting from a computer or smartphone. But 
  studies have been inconclusive, showing that online voting may have little to 
  no effect on turnout in practice, and sometimes even increase 
  disenfranchisement.\footnote{See, e.g., 
  \cite{GS17,who-are-the-internet-voters,rand-turnout} and more discussion in 
  Section~1.}
  More importantly: any increased turnout
  associated with Internet- or blockchain-based voting would come at the 
  pyrrhic cost of losing any credible assurance that votes have been counted 
  as voters cast them, as opposed to undetectably altered or discarded. 
  This is because electronic-only voting systems --- including blockchain-based 
  systems --- will be highly vulnerable to catastrophic failures for the 
  foreseeable future, given the state of the art in computer security.
\par
  The bulk of this article's analysis systematizes prior research about
  the security risks of online and electronic voting, and explains that these 
  critiques apply equally to blockchain-based voting system proposals.
  The article also observes that blockchains may actually introduce new problems
  to voting systems, and provides a list of questions intended as a reference
  for critically assessing security risks of any new voting system proposals.
}
}