## 1 Introduction  
Elections and voting play a pivotal role in the development of a democratic society by allowing the public to express their views and participate in the decision-making process, ensuring equal rights and fair representation. To maintain the credibility of participants, the election and voting processes must be reliable and transparent [1; 2; 3; 4; 5]. Over time, voting methods have evolved from traditional paper ballot systems to e-voting systems, aiming to preserve integrity and establish a secure, transparent [3; 4], and verifiable system. Ongoing efforts focus on improving overall efficiency and resilience. Traditional voting, conducted at specific polling stations, incurs significant costs and time. Consequently, e-voting has emerged as a replacement, minimizing election costs and ensuring integrity by addressing privacy, security, and compliance requirements [6]. E-voting leverages cryptographic techniques [7], enabling full features on common household devices and ensuring instant and anonymous vote counting. To implement e-voting systems, it is important to follow key standards and benchmarks that protect voter privacy, ensure vote accuracy, and prevent denial of a voter's action. However, these systems oftenface major challenges, especially in terms of security, privacy, and maintaining voter trust, due to risks of fraud and manipulation. To address these problems, there is a need for a strong solution, such as blockchain technology, that offers secure cryptographic capabilities [8]. As blockchain [9; 10; 11; 12; 13] provides an unchangeable and transparent structure, e-voting systems can improve security and trust. Moreover, the decentralized nature of blockchain reduces the risk of corruption or manipulation that can happen in centralized systems [14; 15; 16]. Many researchers in the literature have proposed blockchain-based e-voting systems that employ tools such as smart contracts, blind signatures, and homomorphic encryption [17; 18]. While blockchain has the potential to improve e-voting, its use in this field is still new and needs more research and development to reach its full potential. Although some blockchain-based e-voting systems exist, they do not yet provide complete solutions that cover all key areas of election security, such as safe voter registration and reliable vote counting. This paper introduces VoteChain, a new blockchain-based e-voting system designed to address modern election challenges, specifically in Palestine. VoteChain uses several cryptographic methods to ensure the security, privacy, and verifiability of votes. It provides transparency by allowing public audits of all transactions without revealing voter identities. The system prevents unauthorized access and double voting through the use of cryptographic hashes and smart contracts while maintaining voter privacy. VoteChain is designed with a user-friendly web interface, making it easy for all voters to use. Its decentralized structure reduces the risks of centralized control, making the voting process more democratic and harder to manipulate. The system is scalable, allowing it to handle large-scale elections and making it suitable for national use. VoteChain's design includes a strong, smart contract system that controls transactions, checks computations, enforces rules, and handles data after they are sent. This setup improves security and keeps the voting process trustworthy. It also meets the needs of different voters while supporting fair competition. The contribution of this research could be summarized as follows:  
1. Introducing VoteChain, a blockchain-based e-voting system designed to address the specific voting challenges in the state of Palestine, with enhanced security and privacy features;
2. Using several advanced cryptographic methods, including SHA-256 hashing and elliptic curve signatures, to ensure votes are secure, private, and verifiable;
3.