A Comparative Security Analysis of the German Federal Postal Voting Process
Pages 198 - 207
Abstract
The percentage of votes cast by postal voting increases with every election for the German federal parliament (Bundestag). However, especially compared to Internet voting, concerns regarding security, transparency, and trustworthiness of postal voting are rarely discussed. This paper outlines the established process of postal voting in Germany and evaluates it with regard to various security-relevant characteristics. For this evaluation, a methodology originally developed for Internet voting is used in order to ensure comparability. The aim is to identify weaknesses as well as potential for optimization, to compare German postal voting with selected Internet voting schemes, and to derive implications for policy and further research.
References
[1]
1989. Erste Verordnung zur Änderung der Bundeswahlordnung. https://dejure.org/BGBl/1989/BGBl._I_S._1981
[2]
Josh Benaloh, Peter Y. A. Ryan, and Vanessa Teague. 2013. Verifiable Postal Voting. In Security Protocols XXI, Bruce Christianson, James Malcolm, Frank Stajano, Jonathan Anderson, and Joseph Bonneau(Eds.). Springer Berlin Heidelberg, Berlin, Heidelberg, 54–65. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-41717-7_8
[3]
Katharina Bräunlich and Grimm Rüdiger. 2016. Einfluss von Wahlszenario auf Geheimheit, Privatheit und Öffentlichkeit der Wahl. Arbeitsberichte FB Informatik 2016/2. Universität Koblenz-Landau. https://kola.opus.hbz-nrw.de/opus45-kola/frontdoor/deliver/index/docId/1316/file/Einfluss_von_Wahlszenario_auf_Geheimheit_Privatheit_und_Oeffentlichkeit_der_Wahl.pdf
[4]
Bundesverfassungsgericht. 2009. Judgment of the Second Senate of 3 March 2009 - 2 BvC 3/07 -, paras. 1-166. (03 2009). https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Entscheidungen/EN/2009/03/cs20090303_2bvc000307en.html;jsessionid=393F8F7CF286625A3FE9E633FFDF7691.1_cid386l
[5]
Der Bundeswahlleiter. 2017. Anteil der Briefwählerinnen und Briefwähler bei den Bundestagswahlen 1994 bis 2017 nach Ländern (auf Grundlage des amtlichen Endergebnisses. https://www.bundeswahlleiter.de/dam/jcr/b4aeabb8-7fac-473e-8581-cd718cb7a007/BTW_ab94_briefwahl.pdf
[6]
Der Bundeswahlleiter. 2017. Bundestagswahl 2017 - Briefwahl. https://www.bundeswahlleiter.de/bundestagswahlen/2017/informationen-waehler/briefwahl.html
[7]
William Clarkson, Tim Weyrich, Adam Finkelstein, Nadia Heninger, J. Alex Halderman, and Edward W. Felten. 2009. Fingerprinting Blank Paper Using Commodity Scanners. In 2009 30th IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy. 301–314. https://doi.org/10.1109/SP.2009.7
[8]
Véronique Cortier, Jérémie Detrey, Pierrick Gaudry, Frédéric Sur, Emmanuel Thomé, Mathieu Turuani, and Paul Zimmermann. 2011. Ballot stuffing in a postal voting system. In 2011 International Workshop on Requirements Engineering for Electronic Voting Systems. 27–36. https://doi.org/10.1109/REVOTE.2011.6045913
[9]
Stéphanie Delaune, Steve Kremer, and Mark Ryan. 2009. Verifying privacy-type properties of electronic voting protocols. Journal of Computer Security 17, 4 (2009), 435–487. http://www.lsv.fr/Projects/anr-avote/PUBLIS/DKR-jcs08.pdf
[10]
Ed Gerck, C. Andrew Neff, Ronald L. Rivest, Aviel D. Rubin, and Moti Yung. 2002. The Business of Electronic Voting. In Financial Cryptography, Paul Syverson (Ed.). Springer Berlin Heidelberg, Berlin, Heidelberg, 243–268. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-46088-8_21
[11]
Gurchetan S. Grewal, Mark D. Ryan, Liqun Chen, and Michael R. Clarkson. 2015. Du-Vote: Remote Electronic Voting with Untrusted Computers. In 2015 IEEE 28th Computer Security Foundations Symposium. 155–169. https://doi.org/10.1109/CSF.2015.18
[12]
Simon Gölz, Michael P. Heinl, and Christoph Bösch. 2019. Trustworthy Elections? Eine Übersicht aktueller Verfahren & Probleme von Internetwahlen in unkontrollierten Umgebungen. Technical Report. https://doi.org/10.18725/OPARU-22691
[13]
Christian Haase. 2020. Pressestatement | Höhere Wahlbeteiligung dank Briefwahl. https://haasechristian.de/kpv/artikel/news/pressestatement-hoehere-wahlbeteiligung-dank-briefwahl/
[14]
Jörg Helbach. 2010. Eingrenzung des Secure Platform Problems bei Internetwahlsystemen mit Hilfe von Code Voting. Ph.D. Dissertation. Ruhr-Universität Bochum. https://hss-opus.ub.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/opus4/frontdoor/index/index/year/2018/docId/2648
[15]
Michael Howard and Steve Lipner. 2006. The security development lifecycle. Microsoft Press, Redmond, WA, USA. http://download.microsoft.com/download/C/8/F/C8FF968E-91C6-4E91-BF4E-00352917169D/11_Microsoft_Security_Development_Lifecycle.pdf
[16]
Ari Juels, Dario Catalano, and Markus Jakobsson. 2005. Coercion-Resistant Electronic Elections. In Proceedings of the 2005 ACM Workshop on Privacy in the Electronic Society (Alexandria, VA, USA) (WPES ’05). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 61–70. https://doi.org/10.1145/1102199.1102213
[17]
Robert Krimmer and Melanie Volkamer. 2005. Bits or Paper? Comparing Remote Electronic Voting to Postal Voting. In Electronic government: workshop and poster proceedings of the Fourth International EGOV Conference 2005, August 22 - 26, 2005, Copenhagen, Denmark. Ed.: Kim V. Andersen, Vol. 13. Univ.-Verl. Trauner, Linz, 225–232.
[18]
Robert Krimmer and Melanie Volkamer. 2005. Wählen auf Distanz: Ein Vergleich zwischen elektronischen und nicht elektronischen Verfahren. In Effizienz von e-Lösungen in Staat und Gesellschaft: aktuelle Fragen der Rechtsinformatik; Tagungsband des 8. Internationalen Rechtsinformatik-Symposions. Boorberg, Stuttgart, 256–262.
[19]
Oksana Kulyk, Stephan Neumann, Jurlind Budurushi, and Melanie Volkamer. 2017. Nothing Comes for Free: How Much Usability Can You Sacrifice for Security?IEEE Security & Privacy 15, 3 (2017), 24–29. https://doi.org/10.1109/MSP.2017.70
[20]
Thomas Kutschbach. 2014. Ärger mit der Post: Briefe, die nie ankommen. Berliner Zeitung (05 03 2014). https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/panorama/aerger-mit-der-post-briefe--die-nie-ankommen-3219438
[21]
Costas Lambrinoudakis, Dimitris Gritzalis, Vassilis Tsoumas, Maria Karyda, and Spyros Ikonomopoulos. 2003. Secure Electronic Voting: the Current Landscape. In Secure Electronic Voting. 101–122.
[22]
Lucie Langer. 2010. Privacy and Verifiability in Electronic Voting. Ph.D. Dissertation. Technische Universität Darmstadt. https://tuprints.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/2313/2/Dissertation_Langer.pdf
[23]
Lucie Langer, Axel Schmidt, Johannes Buchmann, and Melanie Volkamer. 2010. A Taxonomy Refining the Security Requirements for Electronic Voting: Analyzing Helios as a Proof of Concept. In 2010 International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security. 475–480. https://doi.org/10.1109/ARES.2010.106
[24]
Lucie Langer, Axel Schmidt, Johannes Buchmann, Melanie Volkamer, and Alexander Stolfik. 2009. Towards a Framework on the Security Requirements for Electronic Voting Protocols. In Proceedings of the 2009 First International Workshop on Requirements Engineering for e-Voting Systems(RE-VOTE ’09). IEEE Computer Society, Washington, DC, USA, 61–68.
[25]
Raphael Moritz. 2013. Pannen bei der Briefwahl. Handelsblatt (09 10 2013). http://www.handelsblatt.com/8908552.html
[26]
Robert Müller-Török. 2019. The Principles Established by the Recommendation CM/Rec(2017)5 on Standards for E-voting Applied to Other Channels of Remote Voting. Masaryk University Journal of Law and Technology 13 (06 2019), 3. https://doi.org/10.5817/MUJLT2019-1-1
[27]
Robert Müller-Török and Arne Pautsch. 2015. Stochastische Verfälschung von Wahl ergebnissen bei grenzüberschreitender Briefwahl?Verwaltung & Management 21 (01 2015), 192–197. https://doi.org/10.5771/0947-9856-2015-4-192
[28]
Stephan Neumann and Melanie Volkamer. 2014. A Holistic Framework for the Evaluation of Internet Voting Systems. IGI Global, Hershey, PA, USA, 76–91. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-5820-2.ch004
[29]
Erich Neuwirth and Walter Schachermayer. 2016. Some Statistics concerning the Austrian Presidential Election 2016. Austrian Journal of Statistics 45 (09 2016). https://doi.org/10.17713/ajs.v45i3.596
[30]
Council of Europe. 2017. Recommendation CM/Rec(2017)5 of the Committee of Ministers to member States on standards for e-voting. https://rm.coe.int/0900001680726f6f
[31]
The German Federal Returning Officer. 2020. Essential legal bases of Bundestag elections. https://www.bundeswahlleiter.de/en/bundestagswahlen/2021/rechtsgrundlagen.html
[32]
Organisation für Sicherheit und Zusammenarbeit in Europa (OSZE) - Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) Wahlexpertenteam (Election Expert Team). 2009. Abschlussbericht: Bundesrepublik Deutschland - Wahl zum Deutschen Bundestag am 27. September 2009. http://www.osce.org/de/odihr/elections/germany/40879?download=true
[33]
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) - Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) International Election Observation Mission. 2020. United States of America - General Elections, 3 November 2020: Statement of preliminary findings and conclusions. https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/9/6/469437.pdf
[34]
Frederik Orlowski and Simon Pohlmann. 2020. Die Briefwahl: Ein scharfes Schwert im Kampf gegen Epidemien?Zeitschrift für Parteienwissenschaften 2020, 1. https://doi.org/10.25838/oaj-mip-202038-43
[35]
Jordi Puiggali and Victor Morales-Rocha. 2007. Remote Voting Schemes: A Comparative Analysis. In E-Voting and Identity, Ammar Alkassar and Melanie Volkamer (Eds.). Springer Berlin Heidelberg, Berlin, Heidelberg, 16–28. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-77493-8_2
[36]
Emilie Reichmann. 2016. Einwurf - Zukunft der Demokratie: Mehr Briefwahl wagen!Ausgabe 3. https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/fileadmin/files/BSt/Publikationen/GrauePublikationen/ZD_EINWURF_03_2016.pdf
[37]
Ronald L. Rivest. 2006. The ThreeBallot voting system. VTP Working Paper 56. Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project (VTP). https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/96593
[38]
Peter Y. A. Ryan and Vanessa Teague. 2009. Pretty Good Democracy. In Security Protocols XVII, 17th International Workshop, Cambridge, UK, April 1-3, 2009. Revised Selected Papers. 111–130.
[39]
Krishna Sampigethaya and Radha Poovendran. 2006. A Framework and Taxonomy for Comparison of Electronic Voting Schemes. Computers and Security 25, 2 (March 2006), 137–153.
[40]
Wolfgang Schreiber. 2017. BWahlG: Kommentar zum Bundeswahlgesetz(10 ed.). Carl Heymanns.
[41]
Warren D. Smith. 2005. New cryptographic election protocol with best-known theoretical properties. In Proc. of Workshop on Frontiers in Electronic Elections. 1–14.
[42]
Latanya Sweeney, Ji Su Yoo, and Jinyan Zang. 2017. Voter Identity Theft: Submitting Changes to Voter Registrations Online to Disrupt Elections. Technology Science (05 09 2017). https://techscience.org/a/2017090601
[43]
Jörg Thoma. 2013. Wahlbetrug leicht gemacht. Golem.de (05 07 2013). https://www.golem.de/news/hacking-wahlbetrug-leicht-gemacht-1307-100234.html
[44]
Jan Thomsen. 2013. 64.000 Wahlscheine beantragt: Verfassungsrechtler kritisieren Briefwahl. Berliner Zeitung (18 08 2013). http://www.berliner-zeitung.de/4464084
[45]
Lina Timm. 2013. Briefwahl-Skandal: Bleiben Tausende Wähler ohne Stimme?Focus (21 09 2013). http://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/bundestagswahl-2013/tid-33649/stimmzettel-verschwunden-briefwahl-skandal-bleiben-tausende-waehler-ohne-stimme_aid_1107824.html
[46]
Rudolf L. van Renesse. 1997. Paper based document security - a review. In Proceedings of the European Conference on Security and Detection - ECOS97 Incorporating the One Day Symposium on Technology Used for Combatting Fraud. Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). https://digital-library.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_19970425
[47]
Fabian Wahl. 2011. Tausende Briefe und Pakete kommen nie an. Die Welt (22 08 2011). https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article13558939/Tausende-Briefe-und-Pakete-kommen-nie-an.html
Recommendations
Security Analysis of the Estonian Internet Voting System
CCS '14: Proceedings of the 2014 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications SecurityEstonia was the first country in the world to use Internet voting nationally, and today more than 30% of its ballots are cast online. In this paper, we analyze the security of the Estonian I-voting system based on a combination of in-person election ...
Remote voting schemes: a comparative analysis
VOTE-ID'07: Proceedings of the 1st international conference on E-voting and identitySome governments initially introduced postal voting as a way to facilitate overseas and absentee voter's access to the electoral process. However, reliability issues that are part of postal voting have helped to introduce new remote voting channels ...
Improving remote voting security with codevoting
Towards Trustworthy ElectionsOne of the major problems that prevents the spread of elections with the possibility of remote voting over electronic networks, also called Internet Voting, is the use of unreliable client platforms, such as the voter's computer and the Internet ...
Comments
Information & Contributors
Information
Published In
June 2021
600 pages
ISBN:9781450384926
DOI:10.1145/3463677
Copyright © 2021 ACM.
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].
Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery
New York, NY, United States
Publication History
Published: 09 June 2021
Check for updates
Author Tags
Qualifiers
- Research-article
- Research
- Refereed limited
Conference
DG.O'21
DG.O'21: The 22nd Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research
June 9 - 11, 2021
NE, Omaha, USA
Acceptance Rates
Overall Acceptance Rate 150 of 271 submissions, 55%
Contributors
Other Metrics
Bibliometrics & Citations
Bibliometrics
Article Metrics
- 0Total Citations
- 108Total Downloads
- Downloads (Last 12 months)16
- Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
Reflects downloads up to 09 Nov 2024
Other Metrics
Citations
View Options
Get Access
Login options
Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.
Sign inFull Access
View options
View or Download as a PDF file.
PDFeReader
View online with eReader.
eReaderHTML Format
View this article in HTML Format.
HTML Format