The role of digital signature cards in electronic voting

As electronic voting enters the stage of real-world implementations, digital signature cards emerge as a basic infrastructure element for e-voting. The paper focuses on three main functions of such cards: (i) authentication and (as national ID card also) identification, (ii) as a storage media and (iii) as a secure processing environment. These properties enable protocols for secure e-voting, which guarantees the general voting principles. However, the diffusion of digital signature cards is still relatively low and in many cases, electronic vote casting has to be implemented without such cards. The paper reports on a test election conducted in Austria in May 2003 using a protocol designed for digital signature cards, which was adapted to a case, where such cards are not (yet) available. The necessary adaptations clearly show the importance of digital signature cards for secure e-voting.