Rodríguez-Pérez, AdriàCosta, NúriaFinogina, TamaraVolkamer, MelanieDuenas-Cid, DavidRønne, Peter B.Ryan, Peter Y ABudurushi, JurlindKulyk, OksanaRodriguez Pérez, AdriàSpycher-Krivonosova, IuliiaKirsten, MichaelDebant, AlexandreGoodman, Nicole2024-12-132024-12-132023978-3-88579-741-81617-5468https://dl.gi.de/handle/20.500.12116/45445Quantum computing is yet another example of the shift towards governance and policy-making amidst uncertain risks. We know it is coming and we anticipate that it will have a huge impact on today's electronic communications: the underlaying mathematical problems that allow us to securely send an email, shop online or transfer money are at stake. Voting online will no longer be secure either. In this paper we address a more fundamental concern: how the technological developments in quantum computing tomorrow may affect the fundamental rights of people voting online today. Internet voting is being progressively adopted in many electoral processes, including governmental ones. Countries like Canada, Estonia, France and Switzerland often use it. Their systems satisfy the legal requirements for democratic elections today, but they will no longer be secure once quantum computers are used to break the underlying mathematical problems behind public key cryptography. Our claim in this paper is that this is not only a problem for future regulations, but today's secret ballots are already vulnerable to quantum cryptanalysis in the future (i.e., retrospective decryption). Despite governments and electoral administrations being aware of this risk, no specific measures are yet being adopted to mitigate it, as our analysis of the electoral regulations in the above-mentioned countries shows. Interestingly, there is already a set of alternatives that could be studied. In this paper we analyze several proposals that aim at providing long-term privacy in Internet voting, including secure data deletion, quantum-resistant cryptosystems, and anonymous voting. Whereas none of these alternatives is a silver bullet against quantum cryptanalysis, it is essential that their feasibility is studied so that technological developments do not harm citizen's fundamental rights.enInternet votingquantum computinglong-term privacy10.18420/e-vote-id2023_08