Election Security and Economics: It's All About Eve

CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research at ETH Zurich, Working PAper 17/274, September 2017

25 Pages Posted: 11 Sep 2017 Last revised: 19 Sep 2017

See all articles by David Basin

David Basin

ETH Zurich

Hans Gersbach

ETH Zurich - CER-ETH -Center of Economic Research; IZA Institute of Labor Economics; CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Akaki Mamageishvili

Offchain Labs

Lara Schmid

ETH Zurich

Oriol Tejada

Universitat de Barcelona

Date Written: September 7, 2017

Abstract

A system's security must be understood with respect to the capabilities and behaviors of an adversary Eve. It is often assumed in security analysis that Eve acts as maliciously as possible. From an economic perspective, Eve tries to maximize her utility in a game with other participants. The game's rules are determined by the system and its security mechanisms, but Eve can invent new ways of interacting with participants. We show that Eve can be used as an interface to explore the interplay between security and economics in the domain of elections. Through examples, we illustrate how reasoning from both disciplines may be combined to explicate Eve's motives and capabilities and how this analysis could be used for reasoning about the security and performance of elections. We also point to future research directions at the intersection of these disciplines.

Keywords: Voting; E-Voting; Security

JEL Classification: A11; A12; D70

Suggested Citation

Basin, David and Gersbach, Hans and Mamageishvili, Akaki and Schmid, Lara and Tejada, Oriol, Election Security and Economics: It's All About Eve (September 7, 2017). CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research at ETH Zurich, Working PAper 17/274, September 2017, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3033809 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3033809

David Basin

ETH Zurich ( email )

Rämistrasse 101
ZUE F7
Zürich, 8092
Switzerland

Hans Gersbach (Contact Author)

ETH Zurich - CER-ETH -Center of Economic Research ( email )

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Zurich, 8092
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+41 44 632 82 80 (Phone)
+41 44 632 18 30 (Fax)

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

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Germany

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute)

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, DE-81679
Germany

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

London
United Kingdom

Akaki Mamageishvili

Offchain Labs ( email )

Zurich
Switzerland

Lara Schmid

ETH Zurich ( email )

Rämistrasse 101
ZUE F7
Zürich, 8092
Switzerland

Oriol Tejada

Universitat de Barcelona ( email )

Gran Via, 585
Barcelona, Barcelona 08007
Spain

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