Patent ID: 6845447

Claim:
An electronic voting method in which voters obtain authorization to vote from an administrator and send their vote data to a counter apparatus, and said counter apparatus performs vote counting, said counter apparatus has a series connection of a plurality of distributed counter apparatuses, each placed under the control of a different counter; a secret key of said counter apparatus is split into partial secret keys assigned to said plurality of distributed counter apparatuses, respectively, said method comprising the steps wherein: (a) each of said voters encrypts the vote content corresponding to his chosen candidate by an encryptor with a public key of said counter apparatus, and randomizes information containing said encrypted vote content by a random number to create a preprocessed text, and sends it to an administrator apparatus; (b) said administrator apparatus verifies the validity of each voter apparatus, and inputs said received preprocessed text into a signature generator to generate a blind signature for said preprocessed text, and sends it back to said each voter apparatus; (c) said each voter excludes the influence of said random number from said blind signature for said received preprocessed text; and obtains a signature of said administrator for said information containing said encrypted vote content, and sends said administrator signature and said information containing said encrypted vote content, as vote data, to one of said plurality of distributed counter apparatuses which is connected to one end of said series connection; and (d) said plurality of distributed counter apparatuses sequentially decrypt information containing said encrypted vote content in their decryption parts with said partial secret keys to obtain, at the last stage of said series connection, vote content and count at the last stage of said series connection the number of votes polled for the candidate corresponding to said vote content.