Electronic voting cannot be left to experts alone; this book provides clear and precise answers to any questions citizens may have.

Véronique Cortier is an IT engineer, CNRS research director at the Laboratoire Lorrain de Recherche en Informatique et ses Applications (Loria – CRS/Université de Lorraine/Inria). She developed, in collaboration with other researchers, an open source electronic voting software, Belenios. She was awarded the Prix Inria – Académie des Sciences du Jeune Chercheur in 2015.
Pierrick Gaudry is a CNRS research director (LORIA, Nancy).

Are you for or against electronic voting?
This a recurring question in public debates. Voting over the internet is more modern and would help to reduce abstention rates, as well as accelerate the counting process and make it more efficient. Above all, it avoids people voting in person, which in a pandemic, presents undeniable benefits.
This book, written by two of the best computer security researchers in the world, analyses under which conditions electronic voting would make sense compared to traditional voting. This gives rise to a lot of questions, firstly, which elections and on what scale? Electing the president of a small local organisation is quite different to electing a country’s leader. How can we guarantee the security of this voting system, as well as its secrecy and fairness? Are there better systems available and what should the criteria be for choosing?
The issue of electronic voting cannot be left only to experts, which is why this book answers all the questions citizens may have in a clear and precise manner.

“The blockchain will solve everything”, “The server will know who I voted for!”, “Paper is safer”, etc. This book tackles all the preconceived ideas about electronic voting and invites readers to draw their own conclusions. With a theme that runs throughout: 100% security doesn’t exist, and each type of election must be carefully analysed to decide on the best solution.