Abstract:
A system and method for non-attending members of a group to remotely participate in a voting meeting through a network such as the Internet. The system includes authentication, broadcast and voting computers which work together to authenticate the online members, broadcasts the meeting to the authenticated members, and receive votes from the authenticated online members. The present system provides the advantage of allowing voters to virtually attend the meeting and vote on any issues that are presented at the meeting.

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION  
         [0001]    The present invention relates to data processing systems, and in particular, online voting systems.  
         BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
         [0002]    Over the years, many computerized voting systems have been developed in an effort to automate the process of collecting and counting votes. One system described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,774,665 includes a number of precinct workstations for reading, counting and storing votes, and a central district workstation for controlling the programming of the precinct stations and for reading and tallying stored precinct votes.  
           [0003]    Another system described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,218,528 integrates the stages of registering and certifying voters, and collecting their votes. In that system, a computer station accesses a database to verify that a voter is eligible to vote. Vote entry stations provide a graphic interface for permitting the voter to enter votes. A vote entry controller activates and monitors the vote entry stations to prevent unauthorized voting. Votes may be collected at either the vote entry stations or at the vote entry controller. Votes collected at the vote entry stations are downloaded to the vote entry controller, which enhances security by providing a means to compare votes collected at one point in the system with votes collected at another point.  
           [0004]    Yet another system described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,081,793 provides for online voting by remotely located voters through a computer network such as the Internet.  
           [0005]    However, when voting takes place at a meeting such as in a shareholder meeting, many remotely located voters may wish to participate in the discussion of issues to be voted on either by listening to or viewing the meeting in progress. Conventional voting systems do not allow such participation.  
           [0006]    Therefore, it is desirable to provide a system and method for allowing remotely located voters to participate and vote in a meeting.  
         SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
         [0007]    According to the principles of the present invention, there is provided a system and method for non-attending members of a group to remotely participate in a voting meeting. The system includes authentication, broadcast and voting computers. The authentication computer authenticates the identities of online members to ensure that they are eligible to participate in the meeting. Once authenticated, the broadcast computer broadcasts the meeting to the authenticated online members while the meeting is in progress. Preferably, the meeting is broadcast through a computer network such as the Internet to which the members&#39; computers are connected. When voting is about to take place at the meeting, the voting computer transmits a vote request and receives the votes from the authenticated online members. The voting result is then determined based on the received votes.  
           [0008]    As can be appreciated, the present system allows voters to virtually attend a voting meeting and vote on any issues that are presented at the meeting. As a result, the remotely located voters can more fully participate in the meeting. 
       
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0009]    [0009]FIG. 1 is a diagram of an exemplary system for remote participation of voters at a meeting according to the present invention.  
         [0010]    [0010]FIG. 2 is a flow diagram of a method for voters to remotely participate and vote in a meeting according to the present invention.  
         [0011]    [0011]FIG. 3 is a flow diagram of a process for qualifying members wishing to participate in the meeting. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION  
       [0012]    The present invention is a system and method for members of a group to remotely participate and vote in a meeting. FIG. 1 illustrates a diagram of an exemplary system  10  for remote participation of members where the members are shareholders participating in a shareholder meeting. A capture device  12 , preferably a video camera, is operable to capture a meeting in progress. In the embodiment shown, the captured signal includes both video and audio signals. An encryption server  14  connected to the capture device  12  converts the captured signal into a data stream and encrypts the data stream. The server  14  is connected to a decryption server  16  over a link  18  which can be an Internet, Intranet, VPN (virtual private network) or the like.  
         [0013]    A service provider  20  houses the decryption server  16 , one or more broadcast servers  32 , authentication server  34  and voting server  36  which are all connected to each other through a bus  38 . A shareholder database  22 , audio/video storage  28  and authentication database  30  are also all connected to the bus  38 .  
         [0014]    The shareholder database  22  stores identification and ownership information of the holders such as the number of shares owned by each shareholder. The ownership information is updated through a link  24 , either in real-time or on a set schedule, from agents  26 . The agents  26  may be transfer agents or clearing brokers that maintain shareholder records.  
         [0015]    The authentication database  30  stores authentication information that are required to verify the authenticity of the shareholders requesting remote participation in the meeting. The types of authentication information that are stored can vary depending on the authentication technology used. For example, if a smart card technology is used, the service provider  20  would have issued a smart card  43  to each eligible shareholder according to the information obtained from the shareholder database  22 . In that case, the authentication database  30  would contain the shareholders&#39; cryptographic keys such as symmetric keys, or public/private keys that allow verification of the smart cards  43 . If a biometric technology is used, the database  30  would store for example reference fingerprint information of the shareholders.  
         [0016]    The authentication server  34  authenticates the shareholder identity based on that shareholder&#39;s authentication record stored in the database  30 , and verifies the shareholder&#39;s ownership of company shares. The server  34  is also responsible for providing one or more cryptographic keys to the holder&#39;s computer  40  for secure communication and for decryption of the data stream of the captured signal.  
         [0017]    In the embodiment shown, computers  40  of the remotely located shareholders  48  interact with various servers  32 - 36  through a computer network such as the Internet  44 . Authentication devices such as a smart card reader  42  and/or a biometric reader  46  connected to the computer  40  are used to authenticate the identity of the shareholder as discussed in more detail later herein.  
         [0018]    The video server  16  decrypts the encrypted data stream being received through the link  18  and stores it in an audio/video storage  28  for concurrent broadcasting and for later viewing by eligible shareholders who may have missed the meeting. Alternatively, the data stream can be stored encrypted in audio/video storage  28 . The broadcast server  32  retrieves the stored data stream from the storage  28 , encrypts it with a cryptographic key and broadcasts the encrypted data stream to the shareholders  48 .  
         [0019]    When voting is required during the course of the meeting, the voting server  36  securely transmits voting details to the shareholders  48  and receives responses. The server  36  then transmits them to a voting server  13  located at the meeting. The server  13  also collects votes from the shareholders attending the meeting and stores proxy votes. The server  13  combines all votes and displays the total result at the meeting. In an alternative embodiment, one server located at the meeting functions as both the encryption server  14  and the voting server  13 .  
         [0020]    [0020]FIG. 2 is a flow diagram of a method for shareholders to remotely participate in a shareholder meeting, including viewing the meeting in progress and voting. Portions of the computer code implementing the method are stored in various servers of FIG. 1.  
         [0021]    In step  50 , the capture device  12  captures audio and preferably video of the meeting in progress and transmits the captured signal to the encryption server  14 . In step  52 , the captured signal is digitized and converted into a data stream. In a preferred embodiment, the data stream is in a streaming media format such that it can be viewed in real-time by remotely located shareholders  48 .  
         [0022]    In step  54 , the encryption server  14  transmits the encrypted data stream over the link  18  to the decryption server  16  located at the site of the meeting service provider  20 . In step  56 , the data stream is decrypted by the decryption server  16  and stored in the storage  28 . In step  58 , the stored data stream is retrieved by the broadcast server  32 , re-encrypted and the re-encrypted signal is broadcast to “qualified” shareholders through the Internet  44 . The qualification process is illustrated below with reference to FIG. 3.  
         [0023]    Referring to FIG. 3, in step  70 , the authentication server  34  receives a request for participation from a shareholder  38  wishing to remotely participate in the meeting through the shareholder computer  40 . Steps  74  and  76  determine whether the shareholder is qualified to participate in the meeting.  
         [0024]    In step  74 , the authentication server  34  authenticates the shareholder  38 . In the embodiment shown in FIG. 1, the authentication process is performed in the following manner. In response to the shareholder&#39;s request for access, the server  34  retrieves from the authentication database  30  the authentication record corresponding to the shareholder  38 . The authentication record includes the shareholder identification information and a cryptographic key needed to decrypt messages sent by a smart card  43  owned by the shareholder  38 . Concurrently, the server  34  requests the shareholder to insert the smart card  43  into the reader  42 .  
         [0025]    When the smart card  43  is inserted, the shareholder  38  enters a shareholder identifier such as a PIN (personal identification number) through the computer  40 . The smart card  43  verifies the PIN against its own stored version. Once verified, the smart card  43  communicates with the authentication server  34  using a challenge/response authentication protocol well-known in the art so that identities of both the shareholder  38  and the server  34  are mutually authenticated.  
         [0026]    Alternatively, if a biometric device such as a fingerprint reading device  46  is used, the authentication record stored in the storage  30  includes the shareholder&#39;s reference fingerprint which is compared against a fingerprint of the shareholder which has been scanned by the fingerprint reading device. Other alternative identification devices such as voice or retinal eye scanning devices can also be used.  
         [0027]    Once the shareholder is authenticated in step  74 , the authentication server  34  in step  76  verifies the shareholder status in terms of ownership of at least one share of the company to ensure that that shareholder is eligible to vote at the meeting. Verification of the shareholder is done by retrieving shareholder information from the shareholder database  22 .  
         [0028]    If the shareholder  38  is determined to be qualified to participate under steps  74  and  76 , then the server  34  in step  78  transmits one or more cryptographic keys to the shareholder  38  for secure communication between the provider  20  and the shareholder&#39;s computer  40 . The cryptographic keys are used by the computer  40  to decrypt the encrypted data stream signal broadcast by the broadcast server  32  and to encrypt voting responses that are transmitted to the voting server  36 .  
         [0029]    Referring back to FIG. 2, in step  60  when the meeting reaches a point at which a vote is to be taken, the voting server  36  is pre-programmed with voting questions and all possible responses thereto. Alternatively, the voting questions can be created by the voting server  36  in real-time or some voting questions can be pre-programmed and other voting questions created in real-time. The server  36  securely transmits the necessary voting information to the qualified shareholders  48  and requests their responses.  
         [0030]    In step  62 , the server  36  receives the voting responses from the qualified shareholders which are then transmitted to the onsite voting server  13  through the link  18 . At the same time, the server  13  receives the voting responses from the shareholders in attendance. In step  64 , the voting server  36  checks for fraudulent votes among the votes cast by proxy, by qualified online shareholders, and by shareholders in attendance. In one embodiment, fraud checking involves ensuring that there are no duplicate votes and the number of votes cast corresponds to the record stored in the shareholder database  22 . In step  66 , the server  13  combines all shareholder votes and determines the voting results. In step  68 , the server  13   15 displays the result at the meeting.  
         [0031]    As discussed above, computer code that performs the user&#39;s side of the authentication and verification steps  74 ,  76  can be downloaded, for example as preferably JAVA applets to be run by a browser, at the time the shareholder requests access in step  70 , or downloaded prior to the request for access and installed in the shareholder&#39;s computer  40 .  
         [0032]    From the foregoing, it will be appreciated that, although specific embodiments of the invention have been described herein for purposes of illustration, various modifications may be made without deviating from the spirit and scope of the invention. For example, while the invention has been described with reference to shareholders, the principles of the invention can be applied to remote participation of any members of a group conducting a meeting such as employees of a company, voters in an election, focus group for a motion picture film preview, product screening or the like. Accordingly, the present invention is not limited except as by the appended claims.