LAIKIPIA UNIVERSITY

STUDENT ONLINE VOTING SYSTEM

PROJECT PROPOSED

BY:

Academic Supervisor:

School of Information Technology and Engineering

Department of

THIS PROJECT PROPOSAL IS UNDERTAKEN AS A PARTIAL

FULFILMENT OF THE AWARD OF A BACHELOR’S DEGREE IN
COMPUTER SCIENCE.
Declaration

I hereby declare that this project is my very own original work and has not been
presented in any institution for the award of any academic certificate

Signature:
__________________________________________________________

Date:
__________________________________________________________

Supervisor: ___________________________________________________

Signature: _________________________________________________________

Date: _________________________________________________________

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 Table of Contents
LAIKIPIA UNIVERSITY ..................................................................................................................... ii

Table of Contents ......................................................................................................................... iv

CHAPTER ONE ................................................................................................................................ 1

INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................. 1

1.1 Background Information ..................................................................................................... 1

1.2 Statement of the problem .................................................................................................. 2

1.3 Objectives............................................................................................................................ 2

1.3.1 General Objective ........................................................................................................ 2

1.3.2 Specific Objectives ...................................................................................................... 2

1.4 Scope ................................................................................................................................... 2

1.5 Justification ......................................................................................................................... 3

CHAPTER TWO ............................................................................................................................... 4

LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................................................................................... 4

The electronic voting system of India (EVM). ........................................................................... 5

2.1.1 Diebold Accuvote System ........................................................................................... 5

2.1.2 Biometric voter registration system of Ghana. ............................................................ 5

2.1.3 E-voting in a Controlled Environment (Supervised Voting) ....................................... 6

2.1.4 Proposed System ............................................................................................................. 6

CHAPTER THREE ............................................................................................................................ 8

METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................................................ 8

3.1 System development methodology .................................................................................... 8

3.2 Analysis and Design Tools ................................................................................................... 9

3.2.1 System Analysis Tools .................................................................................................. 9

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 3.2.2 System Design Tools .................................................................................................... 9

3.3 System Implementation Tools/Techniques ...................................................................... 10

3.4 System Testing and Validation .......................................................................................... 10

3.4.1 Unit Testing................................................................................................................ 11

3.4.2 Incremental integration testing ................................................................................. 11

3.4.3 Regression testing: .................................................................................................... 11

3.4.4 Security Testing: ........................................................................................................ 11

References ................................................................................................................................... 12

APPENDICES ................................................................................................................................ 13

Appendix (I): Project Gant Chart ............................................................................................. 13

Appendix (ii): Estimated budget for the project ..................................................................... 13

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 CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background Information

E-democracy is a term produced from the words "Electronic" and "democracy," and
comprises the use of electronic communications technologies such as the Internet in
order to enhance democratic processes and provide increased opportunities for
individuals and communities to interact with government and for the government to
seek input from the community. E-democracy is at the convergence of traditional
democratic processes and Internet technology. E-democracy can also be deemed as the
use of electronic communications technologies, in the policy-making process and the
government-citizen relations in order to encourage a direct and more active citizen
participation in public life and the decision-making process. E-democracy is also
sometimes referred to as cyber democracy, tele democracy or digital democracy. E-
voting is a term produced from the words "Electronic" and "voting" and encompasses
several different types of voting, embraces both electronic means of casting a vote and
electronic means of counting votes. Electronic voting is the option of using electronic
means to vote in referendums and elections, including polling place e-voting and remote
e-voting. Remote e-voting options include voting over the Internet and the use of
personal digital assistants (PDAs) or telephones or mobile phones to cast a vote
electronically. Electronic voting technology can include punch cards, optical scan
voting systems and specialized voting kiosks. It can also involve transmission of ballots
and votes via telephones, private computer networks or the Internet (Valsamidis et.al,
2013)

The present form of voting in general elections in Laikipia University is founded

entirely on paper based and largely manual voting procedures. New technology with
advanced vote-client machines (computer terminals used for voting) for elections may
entail several advantages. It may, enhance the voters’ scope for participating in the
election. It also creates scope for more rapid tallying of votes and distribution of seats.
This also enables the electoral administration to promptly announce the election results
to a broader circle. The risk of error in vote-tallying can also be largely eliminated. In
this proposed system, the Internet is changing student’s expectations around the speed
and convenience with which all the university’s services and elections should be
delivered.

1.2 Statement of the problem

In the present system there is no such application level system provision in the
university to carry out the voting and procedure as a whole. Also in the present status,
there is no such application in use for automated system for voting according to the
voting structure existing in the Laikipia University. All the step by step procedures are
carried out by the authorized authorities. The fact is all the procedures are carried out
manually, starting from the registration of members, proposing of bills, recording of
votes and result publishing. Manual conducting of the processes results to the following
disadvantages;

1.3 Objectives

1.3.1 General Objective

To develop an online student voting system to monitor the entire voting process and
also to archive the election results.

1.3.2 Specific Objectives

i. To investigate the existing system so as to determine the system requirements.
ii. To design and develop a user friendly online student voting system.
iii. To test and validate the developed system

1.4 Scope

The scope of my research is Laikipia University, in particular the student voting system
by the electoral board.

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1.5 Justification

The purpose of the proposed student voting system is to deliver state-of-the-art

technology that is both efficient, allowing electoral authorities to utilize the benefits of a
computerized system and also practical, maintaining the basic principles that the voters
and election personnel are accustomed to. This solution makes use of the latest
technologies that allow electoral authorities to complete counting and canvassing
processes in a matter of hours, a task that traditionally took days. The system automates
the scanning, counting, consolidation and transmission of the votes, in a secure and
traceable manner, reducing the chance of human error, tampering or fraud attempts and
increases the integrity of the elections.

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 CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW

The main concern in the world of software production today is the need to come up with
user friendly systems. All the enterprises and organizations are therefore looking for
systems that are easy to interact and one that their users will be comfortable to work
with to enhance productivity and efficiency. User centered interface design is a major
issue in the design of software. However, when designing a system, the designer must
take into consideration the user's needs, and then proceed to design the system
according to his/her understanding of the user's needs and Several software’s
developments have been done to implement electronic voting.

CASE STUDIES

ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINE IN US

The US House of Representatives recorded and roll call votes are normally taken by
electronic device, except when the Speaker orders the vote to be recorded by other
methods prescribed by the Rules of the House. In addition, quorum calls are generally
taken by electronic device. Each Member is provided with a personalized Vote-ID Card
which can be used to vote electronically. A number of vote stations are positioned
around the Chamber. Each vote station has a slot into which the voting card is inserted
and buttons marked "yea," "nay," "present." The stations have an "open" indicator,
which is lit when a vote is in progress and the system is ready to accept votes. Members
vote by inserting the voting card into the card slot and pressing the appropriate button to
indicate the Member's choice. Members, if they wish, may have their votes recorded by
handing a paper ballot to the Tally Clerk, who then records the vote electronically
according to the indicated preference of the Member. The paper ballots are green for
"yea," red for "nay," and amber for "present." The voting machine records the votes and
tallies the result when the vote is completed (US House of Representatives History, Art
& Archives, 2010).

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The electronic voting system of India (EVM).
In India all earlier elections be it state elections or Centre elections a voter used to cast
his/her vote to his/her favorite candidate by putting the stamp against his/her name and
then folding the ballot paper as per a prescribed method before putting it in the Ballot
box. This was a long, time-consuming process and very much prone to errors. This
situation continued till election scene was completely changed by electronic voting
machine (EVM). No more ballot paper, ballot boxes, stamping, etc. all this condensed
into a simple box called ballot unit of the electronic voting machine. EVM is capable of
saving considerable printing stationery and transport of large volumes of electoral
material. It is easy to transport, store, and maintain. It completely rules out the chance
of invalid votes. Its use results in reduction of polling time, resulting in fewer problems
in electoral preparations, law and order, candidates' expenditure, etc. and easy and
accurate counting without any mischief at the counting Centre. It is also ecofriendly.
This project is based on assembly language programming. The software platforms used
in this project are Keil uVision3 and C Programming (Beynon, 2004).

2.1.1 Diebold Accuvote System

Diebold Accuvote System is a new system of voting adopted by the US government.
Diebold system works on Microsoft software; the votes are stored in MS Access files. It
has no seals on locks and panels to detect a tempering. It has a keyboard interface, a
touch screen GUI and a network connection to send the results to a server after
encrypting it with DES (Diebold, 2012).

2.1.2 Biometric voter registration system of Ghana.

Biometric voter registration system of Ghana. This is a system is designed to serve the
purpose of registering voters using their biometric characteristics. It works by a user
(voters) putting their finger against an interface which then scans the user for
identification and displays all the details necessary. The problem with the system is that
it only handles issues with voter registration only and voters must present themselves

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 physically to have that done making the system more of a standalone application.
(Crespi, 2005)

2.1.3 E-voting in a Controlled Environment (Supervised Voting)

A controlled environment is one managed and supervised by the government. Electoral

authorities pride the hardware and access to it. Voting in controlled environments uses
electronic methods that are similar to those used when voting at a polling booth.
(Kumar B., 2011). Elections officials may choose to use a custom or standard stand-
alone kiosk (not connected to the Internet) that allows users to cast ballots. E-voting in a
controlled environment is perhaps the most common alternative form of voting, since
large countries such as India and Brazil, as well as many electoral officials in the United
States, have already adopted this. The introduction of voting machines in India replaced
some 2.5 million ballot boxes that needed to be secured (Kumar 2011). Voters are still
required to physically attend a polling station and properly identify themselves to
electoral authorities before being permitted to use a voting machine. Most of these
machines are stand-alone kiosks, meaning that they are not connected to the Internet.

2.1.4 Proposed System

The Student Online voting system is intentioned to simplify the functions of the
Laikipia University electorate by making the processes involved to be simpler, fast and
economical. The proposed system will play a crucial role in enhancing the university’s
realization of its goals and objectives by facilitating the voting process.

This system will be user friendly and a lot easier to independently moderate the
elections and subsequently reinforce its transparency and fairness. The proposed system
will lead to less cost and effort required to run the business of the university.

The main advantages of the proposed system are the following:

i. Rigging of votes will be minimized as the tallying of votes is automated.

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ii. It will be cheap because no money is required in the production of ballot papers and
boxes.

iii. Report generation will be easy because it will be automated.

iv. Reduction of number of spoiled votes.

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 CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY

3.1 System development methodology

The proposed system will be developed using incremental process model. This is
because it allows gradual development, as mistakes are being corrected and evaluation
can be done at initial stages of development, and new functionalities can be defined for
later
increments.

Incremental methodology has various benefits which include; First, after each iteration,
regression testing should be conducted. During this, testing faulty elements of the
system can be quickly identified because few changes are made within any single
iteration. Second, it is generally easier to test and debug than other methods of software
development because relatively smaller changes are made during each iteration. This
allows for more targeted and rigorous testing of each element within the overall system.
Incremental has limitations too, as additional functionality is added to the product,
problems may arise related to the system architecture which were not evident in earlier
prototypes or first stages

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3.2 Analysis and Design Tools

3.2.1 System Analysis Tools

3.2.1.1 Interviewing
Interviewing will be used as the data collection technique since the researcher will be
able to get the information about the challenges encountered during the election process
from the people incharge.

3.2.1.2 Observation
The researcher will also use observation as a data technique as he/she will be able to
learn how the whole voting process is conducted at Laikipia University.

3.2.2 System Design Tools

3.2.2.1 Flow charts

Flow charts will be used to show the flow of data within the system. Flow charts are
easy to draw and interpret because they are straight forward. They can be used to model
the flow of data as the user key in data. Though, flowcharts are useful in efficient
coding, debugging and analysis of a program, drawing flowchart in very complicated in
case of complex programs and often ignored.

3.2.2.2 Use case diagrams

Shows representation of a user's interaction with the system, depicting specification and
association relationships. A use case diagram can portray the different types of users of
a system and the various ways that they interact with the system. This type of diagram
is typically used in conjunction with the textual use case and will often be accompanied
by other types of diagrams as well.

3.2.2.3 Sequence diagrams

A sequence diagram is an interaction diagram that shows how processes operate with
one another and in what order. It is a construct of a message sequence chart. It shows
object interactions arranged in time sequence. It depicts the objects and classes involved
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in the scenario and the sequence of messages exchanged between the objects needed to
carry out the functionality of the scenario. Sequence diagrams are typically associated
with use case realizations in the Logical View of the system under development. A
sequence diagram shows, as parallel vertical lines (lifelines), different processes or
objects that live simultaneously, and, as horizontal arrows, the messages exchanged
between them, in the order in which they occur. This allows the specification of simple
runtime scenarios in a graphical manner.

3.2.2.4 Component diagrams

Component diagrams are particularly useful with larger teams. The initial architectural
modeling effort focuses on identifying the initial architectural landscape for the system.
UML component diagrams are great for doing this as they enable you to model the
high-level software components, and more importantly the interfaces to those
components. Once the interfaces are defined, it makes it much easier to organize the
development effort between sub teams. There is need to evolve the interfaces to reflect
new requirements or changes to the design as the project progresses.

3.3 System Implementation Tools/Techniques

This is a collection of all the hardware and software resources necessary for the
development of the proposed system.

Hardware Requirements: Core i3 processor, 4GB RAM, 500GB Hard Disk.

Front End: HTML5, CSS3, JQUERY, JavaScript, Bootstrap.

Back End: PHP 7.0. MySQL

Text Editors: Atom, Visual Studio Code

IDE: Adobe Dreamweaver CC 2015

3.4 System Testing and Validation

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System verification and validation involves the reviews and walkthroughs that the
researcher will use. Testing and validation of the online voting system will involve the
following methodologies:

3.4.1 Unit Testing

Each component/unit of the developed system will be tested separately, the user
module, administrator module.

3.4.2 Incremental integration testing

Continuous testing of the system will be done as new functionality is added. The
various aspects of the system’s functionality will be made independent enough to work
separately before all parts of the system are completed.

3.4.3 Regression testing:

This involves re-testing the system after fixes or modification are made on the system.
The developed system will be tested after new modifications are made

3.4.4 Security Testing:

The system will be tested to determine how well it protects against unauthorized
internal or external access to ensure maximum security.

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 References

US House of Representatives History, Art & Archives. (2010). A Security-conscious

Electronic Polling System for The Internet.

Crespi, M. (2005). Biometric voter registration system of Ghana

Beynon, B. (2004) The electronic voting system of India (EVM)

Diebold, M. (2012). Diebold Electronic voting machine information.

Waweru M (2013) Queue Voting

Kumar B. (2011) A controlled environment is one managed and supervised by the

government.

N.A. Saleemi, (2009), General Principles of Law Simplified, Saleemi Publications Ltd.

Nairobi

Tudor Jackson (1986), the Law of Kenya an Introduction, Kenya Literature Bureau,

Nairobi

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 APPENDICES
Appendix (I): Project Gant Chart

Length in days 5 30

Idea generation

Proposal writing

Appendix (ii): Estimated budget for the project

ITEM COST(KES)

Materials, Services and Expendables

Printing (Proposal) 1000.000
Stationery (3 Pens and Papers) 200.00
Photocopying cost 200.00
1 Flash Disk and 5 CDs 700.00
Modem 2000.00
Bundles 2000.00

Laptop 45,000.00

Miscellaneous 1000.00

TOTALS 52,100.00

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