Blockchain Voting via Cryptographic Blinding and Segmented Hashing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing electronic voting solutions in the Internet of Energy (IoE) face challenges in achieving decentralization, anonymity, verifiability, and efficiency while avoiding a trusted third party, as they often compromise on either anonymity or efficiency due to the involvement of a central authority and inefficiencies in blockchain-based solutions.
Innovation Solution
A blockchain-based trusted anonymous voting method that performs a hash operation on original voting content to generate a commitment value, blinds it with information from other voters, signs it using Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ESDSA), and uploads the vote tuple to the blockchain, ensuring anonymity and verifiability through cryptographic operations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If blockchain technology is used to achieve decentralization and anonymity in voting, then trustless environment and anonymity are improved, but transaction efficiency deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The voting process is segmented into distinct phases: commitment phase (hashing voting content), blinding phase (applying cryptographic blinding factors), signature phase (ESDSA signing), and verification phase. This segmentation allows each operation to be optimized independently, improving overall transaction efficiency while maintaining blockchain decentralization
Solution Approach 2:
Voting content is hashed in advance to generate commitment values before the actual voting transaction. This preliminary hashing action reduces the computational burden during the main voting process, thereby improving transaction efficiency without compromising the trustless blockchain environment
2Reliability
If verifiability is provided through blockchain technology, then transparency and auditability are improved, but voter anonymity deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
Cryptographic blinding factors act as intermediaries between the voter's identity and the voting content. These blinding factors allow the voting transaction to be verified on the blockchain while preventing any link between the voter and their vote, thus maintaining both verifiability and anonymity simultaneously
Solution Approach 2:
Traditional mechanical verification methods that expose voter identities are replaced with cryptographic verification mechanisms. The ESDSA signature scheme and commitment-hash verification allow anonymous votes to be mathematically verified without revealing voter information, substituting physical/mechanical anonymity protection with cryptographic protection
3Device complexity
If a trusted third party is involved in electronic voting, then centralized control and simplicity are improved, but single point of failure and security risks worsen
Solution Approach 1:
The trusted third party is extracted and replaced with cryptographic primitives (hash functions, blinding factors, ESDSA signatures) that operate autonomously on the blockchain. This extraction eliminates the single point of failure while maintaining the voting system's functionality through decentralized cryptographic verification
Solution Approach 2:
The voting system becomes self-verified through cryptographic mechanisms. Each vote automatically proves its validity through ESDSA signatures and commitment-hash verification without requiring external validation from a trusted third party. The blockchain network itself performs the verification, making the system self-sufficient and eliminating centralized control points
Data Source
AI summary
A trusted anonymous voting method includes: performing a hash operation on original voting content to obtain a hash output including a commitment value cv<sub2>i</sub2>; blinding the commitment value cv<sub2>i </sub2>based on information of other voters to obtain commitment value tuples {tilde over (c)} and {tilde over (x)}; signing the commitment value tuple {tilde over (c)} by using an ESDSA to obtain a signature tuple {tilde over (s)}; and establishing a vote tuple ({tilde over (c)}, {tilde over (s)}, {tilde over (d)}) based on the commitment value tuple {tilde over (c)}, the signature tuple {tilde over (s)} and a signature tuple {acute over (d)} of other voters, and uploading the vote tuple (ć, ś, {acute over (d)}) and the commitment value tuple {tilde over (x)} to the blockchain, where signature tuple {tilde over (d)} is generated in a case that other voters verify the signature tuple {tilde over (s)} and the signature tuple {tilde over (s)} passes the verification, and the commitment value tuple {tilde over (x)} is used to decrypt the vote tuple.