“One citizen - one vote” is the central axiom of democracy. To guarantee this in the cyberworld, the State of Geneva relies on a quantum random number generator built by ID Quantique to produce unique identifiers guaranteeing the voters’ anonymity and the vote security. This innovative solution was offered last weekend to 60’000 citizens who had the possibility to cast their vote over the Internet in the framework of the 12th official online ballot in Geneva.

Last weekend, Geneva’s citizens were called to the polling station to vote on a number of referenda. Close to 60’000 voters had the possibility to use Internet voting in addition to the usual paper-based ballot casting methods. Geneva is indeed playing a pioneering role in the implementation of cyber democracy tools in Switzerland.
In order to be able to cast his vote over the Internet, each citizen receives a voting card over the mail. This card bears a PIN code, which allows to validate the Internet ballot. For the system to be secure, it is essential that this PIN code is unique and cannot be reproduced by a party trying to forge votes. The best way to achieve this is to use true random numbers to generate this PIN code.
ID Quantique has developed and commercializes a true random number generator that produces high quality random bits based on quantum physics. Contrary to classical physics, quantum physics, which describes the microscopic world, is intrinsically random. This generator, called Quantis, exploits the reflection or transmission of single light particles, also known as photons and which are “quantum objects”, on a semi-transparent mirror to produce random 0’s and 1’s. This product is used worldwide in applications which require the purest random numbers.
The IT department of the State of Geneva, which developed the Internet voting platform, has implemented a Quantis quantum random number generator to produce the unique PIN codes printed on the voting cards. Doing this ensures that impersonating a voter becomes impossible, as it would require to guess the unique random PIN code.
For Gregoire Ribordy, CEO of ID Quantique, “the production of good random numbers is difficult and often overlooked, which can lead to very serious consequences. Quantis is a simple and cost-effective way to solve this problem. The fact that the Geneva IT department implemented a Quantis generator proves that they take security very seriously.”
For Jean-Marie Leclerc, head of the State of Geneva IT department, “true random numbers provide the Geneva Internet voting application with a critical edge over similar systems elsewhere in the world. One could say that they represent a quantum leap in security.”

About Geneva’s Internet Voting Platform

http://www.ge.ch/evoting/english/welcome.asp