Coercion Resistance

Coercion resistance is a security property of voting systems that prevents a coercer from verifying how a voter cast their ballot, even if the voter cooperates with the coercer. A related but weaker property, receipt-freeness, means the voter cannot produce proof of their vote to anyone — removing the incentive for coercion in the first place. In accessible internet voting, coercion resistance is especially important for voters with disabilities or those in caregiving situations, where a caregiver or family member might otherwise pressure or observe how a vote is cast. Few deployed systems achieve strong cryptographic coercion resistance; most rely on procedural mitigations such as allowing re-voting or an overriding in-person ballot.