Systems and methods are presented for distributed validation of a digitally signed electronic document. A computing device accesses both a representation of the electronic document and a digital signature for the electronic document that includes a digest generated by the digital signature's creator by applying a one-way function to the electronic document. The computing device applies the same one-way function to the accessed representation of the electronic document to generate a new digest, and includes both the digital signature and the new digest in a request sent to a separate validation server. The request does not include the electronic document. The validation server generates validation results that depend on comparing the digest from the digital signature with the new digest, and that do not depend on having the electronic document available to the validation server. The computing device receives the validation results from the separate validation server.