Design And Construction Of A Fingerprint Based Voting System

A voting system includes the practices and associated documentation used to identify system components and versions of such components; to test the system during its development and maintenance; to maintain records of system errors or defects; to determine specific changes made after initial certification; and to make available any materials to the voter (such as notices, instructions, forms, or paper ballots).

Traditionally, a voting machine has been defined by the mechanism the system uses to cast votes and further categorized by the location where the system tabulates the votes.

Voting machines have different levels of usability, security, efficiency and accuracy. Certain systems may be more or less accessible to all voters, or not accessible to those voters with certain types of disabilities. They can also have an effect on the public’s ability to oversee elections.

Electronic voting systems may offer advantages compared to other voting techniques. An electronic voting system can be involved in any one of a number of steps in the setup, distributing, voting, collecting, and counting of ballots, and thus may or may not introduce advantages into any of these steps.

Moreover it is also important that a false entry should not be made so for this one of the most secure methods for voting is using a biometric sensor like a fingerprint reader.

Fingerprints are one of many forms of biometrics used to identify individuals and verify their identity. Fingerprint recognition or fingerprint authentication refers to the automated method of verifying a match between two human fingerprints. in this project we will be using a fingerprint reader for providing access to the voter as well as making a  log if the person has voted or not.

1.1                                 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Voting theory formally began in the 18th century and ever since, many proposal has been made towards using electronic technologies to improve elections (Sobia, Ummer, Ayesha, Usman, and Hassan, 2011). One of the essential features of democracy is Election, democracy encourages individual’s freedom with respect to the rule of law, so that individuals can express their opinion the way they wish, giving individuals the opportunity to decide their leaders, and uninhibitedly express their feelings on issues. Because of the All-inclusive Affirmation of Human Rights in the year 1948 that puts import on compelling circumstance of free elections, countries focused on an improved and new voting process that are of significance to the election processes in the 21st century (Salomonsen, 2005).

Election is the process that enables individuals to choose their delegates and express their fellings on the way they will be administered (Kohno, Rubin, Stubblefield & Wallach, 2003), (Malkawi, Khasawneh & Al-Jarrah, 2009) and (Ashok & Ummal, 2011).

Nigerian election process has been done manually (voting for local and general elections done by electors with ballot papers and ballot boxes in which the papers are placed) since returned to democratic rule in the year 1999, the manual voting process was associated with a lot of problems and always resulted to post-election violence (Yekini, Oyeyinka, Oludipe & Lawal, 2012).

In Federal University of Technology, Minna, voting system is of two main categories, Manual Voting System (MVS) and Electronic Voting System (EVS).

The Manual Voting System (MVS) involves presenting eligible student with a list of contestants on a paper called ballot paper, to mark against their favorite contestants and place the ballot paper in a box called ballot box, this system of voting is used for Faculty and Department election processes in the University. Manual voting system has some disadvantages, which include possibility of placing the ballot paper in the wrong ballot box, votes counting problem, loss of time when there happens to be some objections, paper printing and expenditures done for personnel, for these reasons, it is necessary to use the new technologies to make the election system faster, economic and trustable because the trust that every vote will be tallied and recorded correctly is the foundation of a genuine democracy (Ademand & Metin, 2011).

The Electronic Voting System (EVS) involves presenting eligible student with a list of contestants on a computer, to select against their favorite contestants, this system of voting is used for Student Union Government (SUG) election in the University. The improvement of information and communications technologies has allow for a completely computerised election process whereby counting of vote are carried out in real time, that the results are automatically out by the end of elections day (Rubin, 2002).

1.2                                                   ADVANTAGES OF THE PROJECT

·        Prevents unauthorized use or access.

• Adds a higher level of security to an identification process

• Eliminates the burden and bulk of carrying id cards or remembering pins.

• Heightens overall confidence of business processes dependent on personal identification.