Design And Implementation Of An Electronic Vote System In Electing Class Governor

ABSTRACT

This work is on “ELECTRONIC VOTING SYSTEM IN ELECTING CLASS GOVERNOR”. Class Governor Election is a Voting process through which individuals convey their opinion and has the freedom to elect a leader of the choice to signify and address the student’s issues in the class. In today’s technological and knowledge age, computerized related matters become widespread. E-voting is one of these substances and it is capable to deliver appropriate, less costly, fast and secure services. The aim of this paper is to present an electronic voting system (E- Voting) to be applied to Muni University student’s electoral body. Several security measures were integrated into the E-Voting system in order to achieve an enhanced, speedy and accurate performance. A computer software application was developed using PHP (Hypertext processor) programming language and MYSQL (My Structural Query Language), a relational database management system in designing the database; tested and found to have produced the expected results. It is about time that traditional voting in Muni University gives way to E-Voting and hence simplifies the task for Electoral commission and his/her Officials.

CHAPTER ONE

1.0                                          INTRODUCTION

Electronic Voting (EV) comprises the use of a computer rather than the traditional use of ballot at polling centers or by postal mail [2]. It involves the method for a group such as a meeting an electorate to make a decision or express an opinion, usually following discussions, debates or election campaigns [3]. It incorporates various types of voting such as kiosks, the Internet, telephones, punch cards, and mark sense or optical scan ballots. India as world’s largest democracy with a community of 1.1 billion [4], developed electronic voting machines (EVM). Embraced and supported by voters for elections enable to solve problems associated with the traditional paper-based voting system. The Estonian experience in deploying Internet voting in the United States (U.S) and about 3.4 percent voters were able to use the remote e-voting in 2003 and by 2007 the remote e-voting elections proved secure despite worries about hacker attacks, identity fraud, and vote count manipulation [5].

Regardless of the benefits of E-voting, the variety of its use globally is still, though, partial as it has a shortcoming on many stages such as lawmaking, societal, partisan and technical levels [6], [7] and [8]. The paper underlines the radical and traditional aspects of Electorate body of Muni student’s case for they are the main factors to influence the management’s decision concerning the use of the E- Voting system at the university. The operation of the E-voting system raises numerous questions linked directly to votes such as lawful, societal, practical, partisan, managerial and monetary concerns. Though, profiting from the affirmative aspects of E-Voting desires the operation of security measures in order to repair the lack of transparency and to reclaim the trust of constituencies and liable Authorities [6], [8] and [9].

Depending on the particular implementation, e-voting may use standalone electronic voting machines (also called EVM) or computers connected to the Internet. It may encompass a range of Internet services, from basic transmission of tabulated results to full-function online voting through common connectable household devices. The degree of automation may be limited to marking a paper ballot, or may be a comprehensive system of vote input, vote recording, data encryption and transmission to servers, and consolidation and tabulation of election results.

A worthy e-voting system must perform most of these tasks while complying with a set of standards established by regulatory bodies, and must also be capable to deal successfully with strong requirements associated with security, accuracy, integrity, swiftness, privacy, auditability, accessibility, cost-effectiveness, scalability and ecological sustainability.

Nigerian Universities are required to have free and fair elections for a democratic of the students’ class Governor. Elections allow the populace to choose their representatives to express their preferences for how they will be governed. Thus, the integrity and accuracy of the election process are fundamental to the integrity of the democracy itself. Today, many new technological innovations are developing the computerized security and fair exchange including electronic voting which is becoming a popular trend. Our University is also trying to keep abreast with the other established Universities in every arena. Therefore, students start to replace electronic voting instead of traditional paper voting for saving university resources and time. The implementation of secure electronic voting systems is very critical in every student’s electoral body. The main goal of e-Voting is to provide voters (students) a good environment so that students can cast their votes with minimum cost and efforts. There are so many properties that have been proposed to make the e-Voting secure process. The properties are: – Eligibility: Only eligible/registered students (voters) are permitted to cast and use the system. Secrecy: There is no association between student’s identification and the system. Exceptionalness: No student can cast his/her vote more than once. Freeness: A student does not gain any information (a receipt) which can be used to prove to a coercer that she/he voted in a certain way. Justice: No incomplete result is obtainable before the concluding result comes out. Confirmable: Students can verify that their votes were computed correctly. Uncoercibility: No student can prove what he voted for others to prevent bribery. Effectiveness: The calculations can be achieved within a realistic amount of period.

Electronic voting technology can include punched cards, optical scan voting systems and specialized voting kiosks (including self-contained direct-recording electronic voting systems, or DRE). It can also involve transmission of ballots and votes via telephones, private computer networks, or the Internet.

• STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The election process in anywhere even in our government begins from voters registration. The method adopted during voter’s registration goes a long way to determine the freeness and fairness of the election. In Nigeria institutions, voting/registration process is very cumbersome. So many cases, missing student I.D card in the voter registration is the most challenge that faces voters registration. There are also situations where non-students flock to the class to participate in the voting process. Even after voting, malicious clerks and officers in – charge of a vote end up playing with the result figures.

1.3                            OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

1. The aim of this project is to develop a database for voter’s registration and vote casting which will in turn help universities to conduct a free and fair class governor election using electronic machines.
2. To replace the manual system of voting in schools.

• To ensure credibility in elections by preventing double voting,

1. Help the schools to reduce the huge costs incurred in conducting elections.

• SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The research work is designed to enable school to use electronic device to capture class governor voter’s information. The design will cover some security issues like authenticating the nationality of the voters through integrating the national ID database to the voter’s registration process and also capturing the picture of the electorates for validation during election.

• LIMITATIONS OF THE PROJECT

During the design of this project work, much finance was required and owing to the financial meltdown globally, the research was limited by finance and hence concentrated on the available materials within the locality.

• SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

In view of the rapid development of computer technology in virtually all fields of operation and its use in relation to information management, it has become important to look into the development of electronic voters registration system to enable school to achieve the following:

• Conduct free and fair election for class governor
• Safeguard data and information in the system.
• Reduced workload in the process of conducting class governor election
• Keep accurate record of votes
• Reduce time wasted in announcing class governor election result
• Eliminate disenfranchising electorates.

1.6                                   DEFINITIONS OF TERMS

voting system: is a method by which voters make a choice between options, often in an election or on a policy referendum

e-voting: also known as electronic voting is a term encompassing several different types of voting, embracing both electronic means of casting a vote and electronic means of counting votes.

Information System: It is a collection of procedures, people, instructions and equipment to produce information in a useful form

Technology: It is study of techniques or process of mobilizing resources (such as information) for accomplishing objectives that benefit man and his environmen

Computer Network: is a system that connects two or more computers together using a communication link.

Databases: A systematically arranged collection of computer data, structured so that it can be automatically retrieved or manipulated. It is also called databank.

Ballot Paper:        Material with which voters used to cast their votes.

Ballot Box:            A container in which voters drop their votes

Ballot:                   A vote recorded in an election.

Collation Centre:  A designated location where results are collected.

Computer:            An electronic device that stores data, processes data and produces an output as information.

Democracy:          This is the government of the people for the people and by the people.

Election:               The act of choosing by voting one of the candidates for a position.

NSIEC:                 Nigeria State Independent Electoral Commission

Home Page:          The front door to a website.  Normally contains links to other sites or pages.

Poll:                     The process of voting at an election.

Poll Station:         A centre or venue where voters cast their votes.

Rigging:               To manipulate election result in favour of another person.

Voter’s Card:        This is a card given to a voter to ascertain that he has the right to vote.

Votes’ Register:     This is a register containing the data of eligible voters completed by the election officials.