Online Open Source Voting Basics - Hashes, Timestamps, and Digital Signatures
In the above video we discuss some basic concepts from cryptography that will help you better understand our sample ordered choice voting protocol. If you have a rudimentary understanding of basic cryptography or computer science, feel free to skip this video. The three technologies discussed here are (1) hash functions to generate unique digital fingerprints of files, (2) digital signatures used to prove a person responsible for a public key approves of a digital document, and (3) timestamps which are a way of proving a document was produced on or before a certain date.
A Sample Open Source Voting Protocol
In the above video we give a concrete example of an online open source voting algorithm. This system improves vote transparency, security, and provides detailed electronic documentation using digital signatures, file fingerprints, timestamps, and video recording of voter registration. It shares the main property as the ideal system described in the first video on this page - a level of total transparency that allows any attempts to hack or cheat an election to be detected by the public.
