ITM Web of Conferences 32, 03023 (2020) https://doi.org/10.

1051/itmconf/20203203023
ICACC-2020

Online Voting System using Homomorphic Encryption

Saksham Saproo1,∗ , Vedant Warke2,∗∗ , Shreyas Pote3,∗∗∗ , and Rashmi Dhumal4,∗∗∗∗

1
Department of computer engineering,Ramrao Adik institute of Technology,Nerul

Abstract. An important part of a democratically fair society are elections. The conventional democratic frame-
work becomes hard for the individuals who can’t visit the polling stall for casting their votes. With quick
advancement of data innovation, online Internet voting framework is all the more intriguing to use for the
nations where vote casting cooperation is low and it is too helpful for people living far off from their homes.
Security is a major worry for Internet voting system. The proposed framework guarantees security prerequisites
for example, validation, precision, secrecy, receipt-freeness, unwavering quality, obviousness and reasonable-
ness in the political race.
Keywords- Paillier algorithm; homomorphic encryption; E-voting

1 Introduction decided to go for Homomorphic encryption.

Election are backbone of a democracy, so its important that A homomorphic encryption[10] strategy permits
it should be fair. The way to select your representative is client to work on ciphertext. At the point when client
by voting. In traditional voting system voters have to reach decodes the resultant figure, it is same as though tasks are
polling station and cast their vote, it gets difficult for el- done on plaintext. In this manner, utilizing homomorphic
derly and for those living far from their homes or living in encryption guarantees clients that their information is se-
the remote locality. Voting through internet allows voters cure in all state: stockpiling, transmission and preparing.
to give their votes to their representatives from anywhere Assume if someone wants to sum two numbers together
through internet. online voting system is an application of eg 10 and 20 which are stored in form on encrypted
cryptography. This promises an efficient and secure way number as 98746 and 654421 respectively after that the
of casting and calculating the votes. result of addition 10+20=30 is also stored in encrypted
number as 783356. In traditional way they have to first
Making an voting system on internet has many chal-
decrypt the two numbers than add them and show the
lenges to overcome. Some major issues are voting in a
results. Consider than same situation for a large set of
secured manner and accompanying many voters. There
database example salary record of all employees working
are some internet voting system that cannot work in situ-
in a firm , if we use the traditional way we have to decrypt
ation with many voters. Our proposal uses Homomorphic
all records related to salary of each and every employee
encryption to over come these issues.
, thus exposing data (salary )[11] for employees . But
Homomorphic approach in Internet and systems ad- if we would use Homomorphic encryption we can easy
ministration applications, [8]security is significant worry compute salary on all employees without decrypting there
in the present time of IT. The tremendous measure of data. The computation is done directly on the encrypted
data traded across the Internet is helpless against security data using Homomorphic encryption .Homomorphic
dangers and assaults. Cryptography gives secure trade encryption can either be completely or halfway homomor-
of scrambled information by shared key. The significant phic encryption. A fully homomorphic encryption system
worry with this methodology is information protection provides both multiplication as well as addition of cipher-
as anyone with the key can get to the information. In text. Partially homomorphic encryption supports either
addition, client loses command over information once additive homomorphic or multiplicative homomorphic
it is transferred to the cloud Client must impart a key encryption. Such plan can perform predetermined number
to play out any activities. We need to download and of activities. For instance partial homomorphic encryption
unscramble the information and afterward play out the plans can do multiple addition with one multiplication.
activity. These methodologies lead to security issue and
rehashed encryption decoding. So in this system we have
Pascal Paillier gave Paillier cryptosystem in 1999.
∗ e-mail:
This cryptosystem is an public key system. Paillier cryp-
[email protected]
∗∗ e-mail: [email protected]
tosystem is an partial homomorphic encryption[3] scheme
∗∗∗ e-mail: [email protected] that can can perform addition operation on ciphered data.
∗∗∗∗ e-mail: [email protected] The properties of Paillier’s system are:

© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
ITM Web of Conferences 32, 03023 (2020) https://doi.org/10.1051/itmconf/20203203023
ICACC-2020

1) It is a symmetric key cryptographic scheme[6], gcd(qp, (q − 1)(p − 1)) = 1.

which encrypts message using public key and retrieve The above property is assured if both prime number are
message back from ciphertext using corresponding private equal to each other in length. [3] Compute n=qp and
key. λ = lcm(q − 1, p − 1). Randomly select g as integer where
2) Paillier has probabilistic nature[3]. Every time the g∈ Z∗n2 The existence of multiplicative inverse ensure that
ciphertext is encrypted using Pallier system a new cipher the order of g is divisible by n by the following equation:
text is generated, due to which it is difficult to uniquely µ = (L(gλ modn2 ))−1 modn,[18] where function L(x)=x-
identify whether both the ciphertext are generated for same 1 n . Note that this a b does not mean the multiplication of
message or not. a times the multiplicative inverse of b, i.e., the biggest in-
3) It supports additive property of homomorphic teger value v≥ 0 to satisfy the relation a≥ vb. The public
cryptosystem[3]. key (encryption) is (n,g). The private key (decryption) is
(λ, µ)..
The proposed online voting system is effective , robust If using q,p of same length, a simpler version of the key
and simple using paillier cryptosystem.Paillier cryptosys- generation steps could be to set g=n+1,λ = ϕ(n),, where
tem is an additive homomorpic encryption system which ϕ(n) = (p − 1)(q − 1)
enables to do operation on encrypted number without
decrypting it. Thus using this property of homomorphic 2.3 Encryption
encryption the proposed system provides users with
Let x denote a message that we want to[4] encrypted
availability , confidentiality and integrity.
where 0≤ x < n.
Select r randomly where , r∈ Zn∗2 and 0<r<n (i.e ensure
This paper is divided in to six sections , the brief in-
gcd(n,r)=1)
troduction is given in section one, section 2 explains what
Compute ciphertext as:
is Homomorphic encryption and its properties with Pal-
c=g x · rn modn2
lier cryptosystem in brief with key generation , encryption
, decryption algorithm, the proposed methodology is dis-
cussed in third section , the result and analysis is discussed 2.4 Decryption
in section four followed by conclusion in section five. Let c be the encrypted text from which plaintext need to
be extracted, where c∈ Z∗n2 The original message can be
2 Homomorphic Encryption computed as : x=L(cλ modn2 ) · µmodn decryption is one
exponentiation modulo n2 .”[17]
R. Rivest, M. Dertouzos and Leo. Adleman presented the
idea of Homomorphic cryptosystem, long after the devel- 2.5 Homomorphic characteristics
opment of RSA [1]. It enables to operate on encrypted The importance of Paillier algorithm is due to its ho-
data. Let E be an encryption function used to encrypt momorphic properties and it can able to generate non-
plaintext, x as plaintext and f() as operation to implement deterministic encryption.[5] As function of encryption is
, So homomorphic encryption is defined as : additive, following functions are described below:
f(E(x1),E(x2)....E(xn)) = E(f(x1,x2....xn))
2.6 Homomorphic addition on plaintext
Additive Homomorphism :
Binary operation is denoted by + ,so additive homomor- The multiplication of two ciphertexts will give the addition
phic is described as of their corresponding plain texts when deciphered[2],
E(x2) + E(x1) = E(x2 + x1) D(E(x1 , r1 ) · E(x2 , r2 )modn2 ) = x1 + x2 modn. [16] The
Pallier Cryptography supports additive homomorphic product of a ciphertext with a plaintext [8][9]raising g will
property. decrypt to the sum of the corresponding plaintexts,[13]
D(E(x1 , r1 ) · g x2 modn2 ) = x1 + x2 modn.
2.1 Paillier Cryptosystem
2.7 Homomorphic multiplication on plaintexts
One of the well known scheme for homomorphic cryptog- An plaintext in encrypted form when raised to the
raphy is Paillier [4]. It was invented by Pascal Paillier in power of one another plaintext in encrypted form will
1999. It can encrypt many bits in single operation with give the product of the two plaintexts when decrypted,
an constant factor of expansion and also an efficient de- D(E(x2 , r2 ) x1 modn2 ) = x1 x2 modn. )
cryption. Pallier cryptosystem is defined by four terms: The product of constant with plaintext in encrypted
key generation, encryption, decryption and homomorphic form is a decryption result of an plaintext in encrypted
operation. [4]. form is raised with a constant k.
D(E(x1 , r1 )k modn2 ) = kx1 modn.
2.2 Key generation In any case, in the event that we are given the Paillier
encryptions of two messages ,it is highly unlikely to reg-
Consider q and p are two big random prime numbers ister an encryption of the result of these messages without
which are mutually exclusive of one another ,that is[12] the utilization of private key.

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ITM Web of Conferences 32, 03023 (2020) https://doi.org/10.1051/itmconf/20203203023
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3 Proposed Methodology themselves using login id(which will be there voter id)
and password that was set by the user in registration phase
In today’s competitive worlds most of the lot of things . Thus using user id and password users can get uniquely
are created on online platform similarly in internet voting authenticated.
system voter can cast their votes without visiting the elec-
tion booth. Online voting system utilizes homomorphic 3) Voting stage: In this stage voter can give their
encryption to count votes. The final outcome is taken vote . They can give vote to their selected candidate . The
from encrypted collection of votes without decrypting vote given by voters to their selected candidates are then
them, [4]. so it remains unknown who voted whom. In encrypted using Paillier encryption. The encrypted votes
this system integrity and anonymity of the voter remains are stored in database which will be then tallied in tally
hidden. The voter should have to create their own account stage.
on this portal by verified government documents. The
several stages for online voting system are given below. 4) calculation stage: In this phase Votes that are
stored in encrypted (using homomorphic encyption) form
in database are added to get total no of votes received by
the respective parties.

Consider we have two numbers 10 and 20, we have

to perform the addition on encrypted numbers by using
pailliar algorithm .

Table 1. Example of Encryption

10 gANjcGhlLnBhaWxsaWVyCkVuY3J5c
20 gANjcGhlLnBhaWxsaWVyCkVuY3J
10+20=30 gANjcGhlLnBhaWxsaWVyCkVuY3

In the above mentioned example it is observed that a

new ciphertext is generated for a given number whenever
it is encrypted, this feature helps to maintain the integrity
and enhance the complexity of computation data[15]

4 Result And Analysis

Figure 1. Flow Diagram

1) Registration stage: In this stage we can add new

voter in e-voting system by authenticating voter through
Election authority. The eligibility of the individual voter
is verified by collecting required details about them.
User will enter their basic details and will add there Figure 2. Registration form
voter id which will be crossed checked with the election
commission database. After successful registration, user Voter will Register themselves on the portal by giv-
will able to cast a vote through e-voting system. ing some basic details as their Fullname,password, voter
id, gender, state. after fill the details user’s voter id will be
2) Authentication stage: This stage comes after authenticated with government database of voter id.
registration stage. In this stage user will authenticate

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Figure 3. Home page Figure 6. voting success page

After successful registration stage user can login After successfully casting their vote, voter’s are shown a
with their voterid as username and password that is set by message of successfully voted and the voter are sent back
them. Thus voters will be authenticated uniquely with the to the login page and that voter cannot login again to vote.
combination of voter id and password. If they try to login again they will be shown a message
"Already voted".

Figure 4. Login page

Figure 7. Polling result
In existing system, Voter cast their votes online
This is where voters will cast there vote to their through e-voting system and the vote is stored in encrypted
choice of candidate. Candidates are denoted using there form using Paillier algorithm. The ballots are shuffled and
party symbol . Voter are needed to just tap on the button apply the rotational method on votes for storing votes in
below the party symbol. database which increase the time and space complexity so
the overall cost of the system will increases. The proposed
system allows voter to cast the votes and store it in en-
crypted form using Paillier cryptosystem for maintaining
the integrity of data. When vote casted for specific can-
didate, votes of that candidate stored in encrypted form
and null value is in encrypted form automatically set to
the remaining candidates in database. This will provide
more security as the vote in encrypted form is updated in
database for all candidates. The attacker as well as the
admin or the employees who have access to the database
will not able to distinguish between the ballots stored for
the candidate is a vote cast by the voter or a null value. The
final count of votes for each candidate is calculated using
homomorphic addition property of Paillier cryptosystem.
Figure 5. Voting Page The proposed system is more faster and provides more se-
curity as all votes are stored in encrypted form and this
will help in maintaining the three traids of the cyber secu-
rity i.e. Availability , Confidentiality and Integrity of the
system .

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