Transparent Logs: transparency and auditability using verifiable data structures

• Leonardo T. Kimura USP http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7152-6910
• Stephanie M. Urashima USP
• Guilherme Fumagali UFSCAR
• Gustavo C. Bastos USP
• Yeda R. Venturini UFSCAR
• Marcos A. Simplício Jr. USP https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5227-7165

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/sbseg_estendido.2022.227005

Abstract

Transparency is one of the fundamental requirements of democracy and is a crucial aspect of processes such as elections and political donations. However, these processes often suffer from suspicion of misconduct and require complex auditing to dispel them. Thus, this paper presents Transparent Logs, a system that promotes greater transparency and efficiency in auditing through an architecture based on verifiable data structures. This paper applies the solution to Brazilian elections and presents a prototype with the main operations required to audit an election.

Keywords: Election security, election integrity, verifiable elections, votes auditability, Merkle Trees, verifiable logs

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