DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN ONLINE VOTING SYSTEM
(A CASE STUDY OF ENSIEC ENUGU)
The purpose of this study is to design and implement an online voting system. The study will activate democracy and ensure that the popular choice emerges victories in any local government election conducted in Enugu state.
ABSTRACT: 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. 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 the election result. This could be achieved by an online voting system to remove the difficult administrative tasks of the electoral body which regulated the conduct of an election in Enugu state. This forms the goal set to achieve in this study.
Therefore this project aims at alleviating the incidence of rigging and introduction of an organized procedure of voting which is the bane of socio-economic and political progress in Enugu state.
ORGANIZATION OF THE WORK
This work is organized into seven (7) chapters. Chapter one, discussed among other things, the introduction, states of the problems, the purpose of the study, aims and objectives as well as the scope of the study. Also discussed in this chapter are the limitations of the study and finally, the assumptions made.
Chapter two did a review of related literature, and this chapter was not substituted.
Chapter three gave an account of the description and analysis of the existing system, the fact-finding method used the organization structure. Also, the chapter discussed the objective of the existing system, input process and output analysis, information flow diagrams, problems of the existing system and finally the justification of the new system.
Chapter four gave an account of the design of the new system requirement.\chapter five was based on the implementation, program design, pseudo-code, and program flowchart.
Chapter six is based on the documentation.
Chapter seven includes recommendation, a conclusion as well as the definition of terms used.
CHAPTER ONE
- INTRODUCTION
The advancement made in technology over the past few years is 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 on-line voting. Internet voting opens the door to all sorts of possibilities for our state voting future.
Therefore, voting is a means of selecting or choosing leaders, it does not apply only to local government, states and the 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.
Over the years, the voting operation has been put under a manual system of operation which mostly results in inaccuracy and ineffective election. It is gradually being realized that a much faster accurate, effective and efficient system is needed to be adopted. Here on-line is to be instituted to handle voting.
The online 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 the result calculation of each candidate in a particular election and the percentage scored in that election. This eliminates rigging associated with the calculation and counting of votes.
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.
With online 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 votes 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.
- STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The inefficiency of the 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.
These problems include
- High rigging during the election process
- A single voter casting his vote multiple times
- Inefficient and inaccurate counting of voters by officers concerned.
- Long queues observed at polling stations
- Illegible voters casting their vote
- Loss of votes due to either wrong voting of the use case of an accident occurring during transportation of the statement of result and other electoral materials to the collection centers.
- PURPOSE OF STUDY
The purpose of this study is to design and implement an online voting system. The study will activate democracy and ensure that the popular choice emerges victories in any local government election conducted in Enugu state.
- AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
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;
- Each voter will be able to vote only once
- Nobody will have access to the votes before the official opening of the electronic ballot box.
- The votes cast cannot be intercepted, modified or diverted.
- The on-line site will resist any attack
- Only registered voters will have access to the application
- Voters will be protected against any attempt of identified theft.
- The secrecy of the vote will be guaranteed
- The rigging of the election will be controlled
- The system will not accept vote outside the voting period
- It put to an end the indiscriminate alteration of the election result by any officer of the electoral commission of Enugu
- SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The study covers voting processes as it is done at the ward councillorship election and local government chairmanship elections. It also inculcates the voters’ records, candidates’ records, and voting procedures.
- LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
Due to the fact of non-availability of the vital components required for the design and implementation of an on-line voting system, work shall be limited. However, the immediate availability of components will help the researcher to achieve his objectives fully.
- ASSUMPTIONS
It is assumed that the implementation of the new system will rapidly improve the economic and socio-political lives of the people of Enugu state. There will be no room for rigging and election malpractice
- DEFINITIONS OF TERMS
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.
Collection 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.
ENSIEC: Enugu State Independent Electoral Commission
Home Page: The front door to a website. Normally contains links to other sites or pages.
HTML: HyperText Mark-up Language.
Poll: The process of voting at an election.
Poll Station: A center or venue where voters cast their votes.
Rigging: To manipulate election results in favor of another person.
Voter’s Card: This is a card given to a voter to ascertain that he has the right to a voter.
Votes’ Register: This is a register containing the data of eligible voters completed by the election officials.
Web Site: It is a location on the web that publishes some kinds of information.
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