CryptoBallot is a cryptographically secure decentralized end-to-end verifiable voting system meant for real-world elections. It is a "backend" service providing vote storage, cryptographic operations, and an API. It does not provide a user interface - although it is built to make creating a UI that interfaces with it easy.
It uses distributed key-generation for election encryption keys, blind-signing and an elGamal re-encryption mixnet for voter anonymity, and an optional blockchain backend for distributed transaction storage and verification. It supports all tally methods including write-in candidates.
- Verifiable - the entire voting process should be end-to-end verifiable.
- Ergonomic - Easy to use.
- Fast - 5,000 votes per second for a single shard.
- Scalable - Billions of voters. Unlimited votes per second with horizontal shard scaling.
- Secure - Rock solid security guarantees, byzantine fault tolerance.
- Distributed - Trust and redundency is distributed amongst an operator-selected set of trustees.
Under active development. Not ready for production use!
| Status¹ | Feature | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| ✓ | Migrate from Go to Rust | 🦀 |
| ✓ | Distributed key generation / decryption | Uses cryptid. |
| ✓ | Blind-Signing (RSA) | Uses RSA-FDH |
| Blind-Signing (schnorr) | Will replace current RSA blind-signing | |
| ✓ | Re-encryption mixnet | Provides coercion resistant anonymity. Uses cryptid. |
| ✓ | Optional Blockchain backend | Uses Exonum |
| ⚠ | Support all tally methods | Uses Tallystick |
| ⚠ | REST frontend | |
| ⚠ | End-User Device Verification | Uses Benaoh Challenge |
| TypeScript / JS Client Library | ||
| Dart Client Library (Android) | ||
| Swift Client Library (iOS) |
- ✓ means done, ⚠ means in-progress, blank means not started but support is planned.
# Install dependencies (Mac)
brew install jq pkg-config protobuf
# Install dependencies (Debian / Ubuntu)
sudo apt-get install build-essential jq libsnappy-dev libssl-dev \
pkg-config clang-7 lldb-7 lld-7 protobuf-compiler libprotobuf-dev
# Clone the repository
git clone [email protected]:cryptoballot/cryptoballot.git && cd cryptoballot
git checkout 0.5-beta1
# Install the server and command-line tools (go make some tea, this will take a while)
cargo install --force --path=cryptoballot_server
cargo install --force --path=cryptoballot_cli
# Make a directory to hold our cryptoballot database
mkdir $HOME/.cryptoballot
# Start the server in development mode (dev-mode will autogenerate and print the private-key).
# Make note of the printed CRYPTOBALLOT_SECRET_KEY. We will refer to this as <secret_key>.
# WARNING: Don't use `run-dev` for production.
cryptoballot_server run-dev --blockchain-path=$HOME/.cryptoballot
# Example Output:
# > Starting in development mode
# CRYPTOBALLOT_SECRET_KEY=ddcd9d786ba3975f1c4ba215226f632c455cdd4de51d2183bc985f20f7abc3c9
# > Starting cryptoballot server, listening on port 8080
# In another window, generate an election-transaction using the secret key from before
# This election is very basic with a single trustee, no authentication, and a single write-in-only plurality ballot-type
# Optionally visit http://localhost:8080/api/services/cryptoballot/transactions to see transactions
CRYPTOBALLOT_SECRET_KEY=<secret_key> cryptoballot election generate --post
# Make note of the generated election ID (we will refer to this as <election-id>)
# Create some votes
cryptoballot vote generate <election-id> "EASTER BUNNY" --post
cryptoballot vote generate <election-id> "SANTA CLAUSE" --post
cryptoballot vote generate <election-id> "EASTER BUNNY" --post
cryptoballot vote generate <election-id> "SANTA CLAUSE" --post
cryptoballot vote generate <election-id> "SANTA CLAUSE" --post
# As the election-authority, you decide when the voting is over and votes should be mixed and decrypted
# This can be automated by setting an end-time in the election transaction
CRYPTOBALLOT_SECRET_KEY=<secret_key> cryptoballot voting_end generate <election-id> --post
# After the voting is over, the server will automatically mix and decrypt the votes
# Optionally visit http://localhost:8080/api/services/cryptoballot/transactions to see transactions
# Do an verifiable end-to-end verification of the election and get the results!
cryptoballot e2e <election-id> --print-tally --print-results
- Add
cryptoballot = "0.3.1"to your rust project'sCargo.tomlfile.
- Install Rust,
- Run
cargo install --path=cryptoballot_cli
- Install Rust,
- Install dependencies (see below)
- Run
cargo install --path=cryptoballot_cli
Cryptoballot Server depends on the following third-party system libraries:
- RocksDB (storage engine)
- libsodium (cryptography engine)
- Protocol Buffers (mechanism for serializing structured data)
Other components (core library, command-line tools) don't require these dependencies.
Mac
brew install jq pkg-config protobufDebian / Ubuntu
sudo apt-get install build-essential jq libsnappy-dev libssl-dev \
pkg-config clang-7 lldb-7 lld-7 protobuf-compiler libprotobuf-devThese papers will help in understanding the underlying theory and mathematical foundations involved in CryptoBallot:
- Verifiable Vote-by-mail, Eleanor McMurtry
- A Threshold Cryptosystem without a Trusted Party, Pederson
- Pseudo-Code Algorithms for Verifiable Re-Encryption Mix-Nets, Haenni et al.
- Exonum: Byzantine fault tolerant protocol, Yanovich et al.
