## 4 Proposed Approach to Assure Anonymity and Privacy in E-Voting Using Blockchain Technology  
Privacy and anonymity are two crucial features related to voter privacy and vote anonymity, so they are closely related to each other in the voting process. Privacy in the case of voting is when no one can know for whom and how the voter is voting, although the voter's identity is potentially known. Anonymity in the case of voting is when no one knows for whom and how the voter voted, but it is potentially known what the voter is doing. No one should be able to detect, identify, or link the vote to a voter during and after the poll. However, in different electoral systems, the voter can verify that their vote is counted correctly. Since anonymity and privacy are critical features of any electoral system, the data flow diagram, as presented in Figure 2, aims to preserve these two features through two separate Blockchains: Distributed Key Blockchain (DKB) and Encrypted Votes Blockchain (EVB). A Distributed Key Blockchain or Distributed Key Management is a cryptographic process in which multiple parties compute a standard set of public and private keys by applying specific protocols and consensus algorithms. This way of generating distributed keys prevents single parties from accessing a private key. The Distributed Key Blockchain can include various authorities dealing with elections, including civil society or other stakeholder institutions. The Encrypted Votes Blockchain (EVB), which is separate from the Distributed Key Blockchain, stores encrypted votes throughout the voting process. Before adding transactions (votes) to the EVB, they are validated and confirmed as legitimate transactions through various consensus algorithms and Smart Contracts. The following steps describe how the scheme works:  
* Step 1. The Distributed Key Blockchain generates public keys that eligible voters will use to encrypt votes. In addition to generating and managing keys, this blockchain must verify in advance whether the voter has the right to vote and has not voted before. * Step 2. At the voter's request and after reaching consensus with the algorithm used for consensus, as described in [51], the DKB generates the pair of keys that the voter will use to encrypt the vote. The preliminary DKG confirms that the voter has the right to vote and has not already voted. There may be some form of interface or application in this part of the scheme that allows voters to vote. Figure 2: Proposed scheme. Step 3. As presented in Figure 3, the voter encrypts the ballot using the public key generated by DKB. The voter generates a cryptographic nonce and adds it to the vote before encrypting it with the public key. A nonce is an abbreviation for \"number used only once\", which is added to the vote and can be used by the voter to verify that the vote has been counted accurately after it has been counted. Nonce-generation and encryption occurs during the voting process within the interface or application that the voter uses to vote. This relationship, as presented in Figure 3, hash and encrypted vote with nonce, assures the voter that their vote has been counted and, furthermore, their vote is counted correctly. * Step 4. As presented in Figure 4, the voter generates a hash of their private key within the interface or application and ties it to the encrypted vote + nonce. Using the hash of their private key, the voter may verify that their vote is valid and has not been tampered with during the voting process. * Step 5. The encrypted vote + nonce and hash are digitally signed with the voter's private key, as presented in Figure 5. The voter is ready to cast his ballot, which will be sent to the EVB; however, there will be a mechanism in place to separate the voter data from the vote data. * Step 6. A form of anonymizer is used in this step, mixing timestamps of votes and shuffling them in order to reduce the risk of voter or vote identification. In addition to timestamp mixing, this approach guarantees that voter data is separated from the vote.