Sophisticated Attacks on Decoy Ballots: A Devil's Menu

CER-ETH Working Paper No. 17/283, December 2017

15 Pages Posted: 20 Dec 2017 Last revised: 29 Sep 2019

See all articles by Hans Gersbach

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

Oriol Tejada

Universitat de Barcelona

Date Written: September 27, 2019

Abstract

Voting systems based on decoy ballots aim at preventing real ballots from being bought. Decoy ballots do not count in election outcomes, but are indistinguishable from real ballots. We introduce a “Devil’s Menu” consisting of several price offers and allocation rules, which can be used by a malevolent third party—called the adversary—to curb the protection offered by decoy ballots. In equilibrium, the adversary can buy the real ballots of any strict subset of voting districts at a price corresponding to the willingness to sell them. By contrast, the voters holding decoy ballots are trapped into selling them at a low or negligible price. Decoy ballots may thus be ineffective against vote-buying even if the adversary’s budget is limited.

Keywords: voting, decoy votes, adversary, electronic voting, attacks, lemons market

JEL Classification: C72, D4, D82, D86

Suggested Citation

Gersbach, Hans and Mamageishvili, Akaki and Tejada, Oriol, Sophisticated Attacks on Decoy Ballots: A Devil's Menu (September 27, 2019). CER-ETH Working Paper No. 17/283, December 2017, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3088508 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3088508

Hans Gersbach (Contact Author)

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

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IZA Institute of Labor Economics

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CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute)

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Munich, DE-81679
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Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

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United Kingdom

Akaki Mamageishvili

Offchain Labs ( email )

Zurich
Switzerland

Oriol Tejada

Universitat de Barcelona ( email )

Gran Via, 585
Barcelona, Barcelona 08007
Spain

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