Design and implementation of an on-line voting system

Project Abstract

<p> Voting is a very important process in the Nigerian political system. It is one of the means and most effective method of ensuring a legitimate government through popular participation. To enthrone sound democracy and stability in the political system of the Enugu state a system of rig-free voting has to be put in place.<br>The system would among others discourage double voting, forgery or hoarding of electoral materials massive transfer of ballot papers destruction of ballot boxes, inflation of electron figures and unnecessary delay in pronouncement of election result. This could be achieved by an on-line voting system to remove the difficult administrative tasks of the electoral body which regulated the conduct of election in Enugu state. This basically forms the goal set to achieve in this study.<br>Therefore this project aims at alleviating the incidence of rigging and introduction of an organized procedure of voting which is the bana of socio-economic and political progress in Enugu state. <br></p>

Project Overview

<p> </p><p><strong>INTRODUCTION</strong></p><p>The advancement made in technology over the past few years are astounding. The computer alone has progressed at a remarkable pace, and updates are continually occurring. Along with the progress of the computer comes the transformation of the virtual world. The Internet is a fairly recent concept that has profoundly affected our daily lives. As with anything new the Internet possesses various mysteries. Research is being conducted to determine the possibilities of an on-line voting. Internet voting opens the door to all sorts of possibilities for our state voting future.<br>Therefore, voting is a means of selecting or choosing leaders, it does not apply only to local government, states and federal government of Nigeria but also in different institutions and social organization. The conduct of elections in a democratic society is very important not only because through it a change of government is effected but also because voting is the main form of political participation for most people. For democracy to be sound, it should be anchored on election free from fraud.<br>Over the years, the voting operation has been put under a manual system of operation which mostly results to inaccuracy and ineffective election. It is gradually being realized that much faster accurate, effective and efficient system is needed to be adopted. Here on-line is to be instituted to handle voting.<br>The on-line voting system ensures that each intended voter is checked whether he/she is registered or not, if he/she is not registered, the system refuses him voting. Also it checks whether he/she has voted for that particular election. This on-line voting system prevents a situation where a particular candidate seizes the voters’ cards, and uses them to vote for himself. Hence the rigging associated with the manual voting systems has been completely handled. The system also takes care of result calculation of each candidate in particular election and the percentage scored in that election. This eliminates rigging associated with the calculation and counting of votes.<br>A means of showing the various outputs is also adopted by the system the output can either be displayed on the screen or a hard copy of it can be produced depending on the choice of the user. This prevents international and unintentional typographical errors in showing the results of the elections.<br>With an on-line voting, voters can be cast only once it will also afford people who are sick and unable to go to polling stations to cast their vote to do so. It should be noted however that on-line voting will not replace the existing ballot forms, but is offered as a supplementary way of casting a ballot.</p><div><strong>STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM</strong></div><p>The inefficiency of voting process in Enugu has resulted in a lot of problems. These problems have continued to obstruct the peace of democracy in Enugu because the choice of a capable candidate is not encouraged by the current system.<br>These problems include</p><div><ol><li>High rigging during election process</li><li>A single voters casting his vote multiple times</li><li>Inefficient and inaccurate counting of voters by officers concerned.</li><li>Long queues observed at polling stations</li><li>Illegible voters casting their vote</li><li>Loss of votes due to either wrong voting of the use case of any accident occurring during transportation of the statement of result and other electoral materials to the collection centers</li></ol></div><p><strong>PURPOSE OF STUDY</strong></p><p>The purpose of this study is to design and implement an on-line voting system. The study will activate democracy and ensure that the popular choice emerges victories in any local government election conducted in Enugu state.</p><div><strong>AIMS AND OBJECTIVES</strong></div><p>The main aim of this project work is to design an on-line voting system which among others be able to achieve the following targets;</p><div><ol><li>Each voter will be able to vote only once</li><li>Nobody will have access to the votes before the official opening of the electronic ballot box.</li><li>The votes cast cannot be intercepted, modified or diverted.</li><li>The on-line site will resist any attack</li><li>Only registered voters will have access to the application</li><li>Voters will be protected against any attempt of identified theft.</li><li>The secrecy of the vote will be guaranteed</li><li>Rigging of the election will be controlled</li><li>The system will not accept vote outside the voting period</li><li>It put to an end the indiscriminate alteration of election result by any officer of the electoral commission of Enugu state.</li></ol></div><p><strong>SCOPE OF THE STUDY</strong></p><p>The study covers voting processes as it is done at the ward councillorship election and local government chairmanship elections. It also inculcates the voters’ personal records, candidates’ personal records and voting procedures.</p> <br><p></p>