Verifiability and auditing are key elements in e-voting systems. While auditing means that external experts need to be able to examine e-voting processes and count or re-count the votes in order to confirm the accuracy of the results, verification refers to methods for voters to verify that their vote is being cast and counted correctly. Auditing and verifying are making use of partially overlapping methods. As described above, the VVPAT or VVAT are methods that would not only allow for auditing, but also for verification.
However, with remote Internet voting systems, a paper trail should not be added. Since the user interface is in an uncontrolled environment (e.g. at a PC at home), this could otherwise lead to “vote selling”. Therefore, a solution could be the “end-to-end” verification. This is a procedure whereby an electronic receipt is created that enables the voter to verify that their votes have been transmitted correctly and have not been altered – without revealing the content of the vote itself.
