DWIT College

DEERWALK INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

STUDENT’S DECLARATION

We hereby declare that we are the only author of this work and that no sources other than that listed here
have been used in this work.

…………………………………… …………………………………………..

Dashain Bhandari Sarthak Singh

TU-Registration No: 5-2-1175-10-2020 TU-Registration No: 5-2-1175-31-2020
DWIT College DWIT College

…………………………………… …………………………………………..

Sudin Rajbhandari Sumegha Shrestha

TU-Registration No: 5-2-1175-42-2020 TU-Registration No: 5-2-1175-43-2020
DWIT College DWIT College
 DWIT College
DEERWALK INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

LETTER OF APPROVAL

This is to certify that this project prepared by DASHAIN BHANDARI, SARTHAK SINGH,
SUDIN RAJBHANDARI and SUMEGHA SHRESTHA entitled “E-VOTING SYSTEM AS
AN APPROACH TO E-GOVERNANCE” in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
degree of B.Sc. in Computer Science and Information Technology has been well studied. In my
opinion it is satisfactory in the scope and quality as a project for the required degree.

……………………………………………
Mr. Uttam Karki
Department of Computer Science
DWIT College
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to Mr. Uttam Karki, our supervisor, for his
invaluable assistance and guidance throughout the development of this project. His insights,
patience, and expertise have been instrumental in shaping our work, and we are deeply
appreciative of his support.

We also wish to convey our sincere appreciation to all the individuals who, whether directly or
indirectly, contributed to the successful completion of this project. Your support, whether through
the sharing of ideas, offering motivation, or providing practical assistance, played a significant
role in this endeavor. Every contribution, no matter how small, was invaluable to us.

This project would not have been achievable without the collective effort and support of everyone
involved. The collaborative spirit and willingness to help from our peers, colleagues, and friends
have been a source of great encouragement and inspiration.

Lastly, we would like to express our profound thanks to Deerwalk Institute of Technology for
their continuous guidance, supervision, and provision of essential project-related information.
Their unwavering support and resources were crucial in bringing this project to fruition. We are
grateful for the opportunities and learning experiences provided by the institute, which have
significantly enriched our journey.
 ABSTRACT

The E-Voting System is designed to modernize and streamline the traditional methods of
conducting elections by leveraging advanced e-voting technologies and comprehensive software
solutions. This system aims to meet the specific needs of election authorities and voters,
providing a secure, efficient, and user-friendly platform for casting, tracking, and verifying votes.
It enhances the voting experience by offering easy access to voting information, secure
transactions, and robust data management capabilities. The system's components are readily
available and intuitive, ensuring broad accessibility.

The primary objective of the E-Voting System is to replace the current manual electoral processes
with a sophisticated digital infrastructure that enhances data preservation, accessibility, and
manipulation. This transition aims to deliver an error-free, reliable, and expeditious electoral
solution that automates various tasks, allowing election authorities to focus on maintaining the
integrity of the voting process. The system facilitates optimal resource utilization and the
maintenance of digital records, thereby eliminating redundancy and ensuring access to the most
relevant information.

By implementing this advanced e-voting system, election authorities can significantly improve
the accuracy, transparency, and speed of elections, fostering greater public trust and participation
in the democratic process. The E-Voting System ultimately aims to provide a secure and efficient
platform that enhances the overall electoral experience for all stakeholders.

Keywords: E-Voting System; Secure Elections; Online Voting; Enhanced Voter Experience;
Efficient Electoral Process.
 Table of Contents
STUDENT’S DECLARATION..........................................................................................................II
LETTER OF APPROVAL................................................................................................................III
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT................................................................................................................IV
ABSTRACT.....................................................................................................................................V
Chapter 1: Introduction......................................................................................................................1
1.1 Overview.................................................................................................................................1
1.2 Benefits...................................................................................................................................2
1.3 Objectives...............................................................................................................................2
Chapter 2: Literature Review..............................................................................................................3
2.1 E-voting: the past.....................................................................................................................3
2.2 E-voting: the present status around the world..............................................................................4
2.3 E-voting: the future- some recommendations/opinions from the guest editors................................5
Chapter 3: Overview of E-government in Selected Countries................................................................6
3.1 E-voting in Canada...................................................................................................................6
3.2 E-voting in India......................................................................................................................7
3.3 E-voting in Germany................................................................................................................8
Chapter 4: E-governance in Nepal.......................................................................................................9
4.1 Background.............................................................................................................................9
4.2 History..................................................................................................................................10
4.3 The current situation of e-Governance in Nepal........................................................................10
4.4 E-Readiness in Nepal..............................................................................................................11
4.5 Interactive Service model of E-governance...............................................................................12
4.6 Challenges.............................................................................................................................12
4.7 Critical Success Factors for e-Governance implementation in Nepal...........................................14
CONCLUSION...............................................................................................................................15
REFERENCES...............................................................................................................................16
 Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 Overview
Electronic voting (also known as e-voting) is voting that uses electronic means to either aid or
take care of casting and counting ballots.

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 requirement, associated with security, accuracy, integrity, swiftness, privacy, auditability,
accessibility, cost effectiveness, scalability and ecological sustainability.

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.

In general, two main types of e-voting can be identified:

 e-voting which is physically supervised by representatives of governmental or

independent electoral authorities (e.g. electronic voting machines located at polling
stations)
 remote e-voting via the Internet (also called I-voting) where the voter submits his or her
vote electronically to the election authorities, from any location
1.2 Benefits
Electronic voting technology intends to speed the counting of ballots, reduce the cost of paying
staff to count votes manually and can provide improved accessibility for disabled voters. Also, in
the long term, expenses are expected to decrease. Results can be reported and published faster.
Voters save time and cost by being able to vote independently from their location. This may
increase overall voter turnout. The citizen groups benefiting most from electronic elections are
the ones living abroad, citizens living in rural areas far away from polling stations and the
disabled with mobility impairments.

1.3 Objectives
The main objectives or goal of this case studies are

 To explore and analyze the history of e-voting or online voting

 To know about the current status of e-voting all around the globe
 To know how e-voting can be evolved in the coming future
 To know how e-voting is going on in some countries of the world
 Chapter 2: Literature Review

2.1 E-voting: the past

The foundations of internet voting are found in the democratization movement and the general
availability of mass electronic media, like the television, after the Second World War. At the
same time, as the internet was in its infancy—as a network of distributed computers,
communicating using packets of information — the idea of enhancing democracy through the use
of electronic means was supported by several great thinkers in order for democracy to finally
come true. Initially, private networks were used for computer mediated communication and
decision making within private organizations ; but secrecy was not considered as a central issue
—it was either not considered to be a fundamental requirement or it was guaranteed by
organizational processes rather than properties of the network communication mechanisms

The next step was the transfer of responsibility for secrecy away from the organizational
processes and towards the network through the use of asynchronous cryptography. During this
period, there were a significant number of research results concerned with the development of
secure multi-party communications, for which elections turned out to be an interesting
application field (for an overview of early proposals and protocols see). After the initial
theoretical work, some researchers applied the results in order to implement REV
prototypes/systems; for example, the Senses system by Cramer and Citron or the EU Cyber vote
system2. In addition, several new technology start-up companies, such as Election.com,
Safevote.net or Votehere.net, focused on REV products.

With this increasing interest, a ‘political race’ began in the mid-1990s to see which country
would be the first to allow for Internet voting in their general elections. It seemed—at that
moment—only a matter of time rather than a question of technical feasibility; particularly after
Bill Clinton ordered further investigation of the issues at the end of 1999. The resulting report
was published at the beginning of 2001, but the events in the November presidential elections
(Bush vs. Gore) focused American attention on the integrity and auditability of election results.
Most Internet voting trials have been outside the USA. But with the adoption of different types of
REV around the world came the realization that it is not purely a technical issue. Many political,
social and legal matters arise when deploying Internet voting. Furthermore, the research
community demonstrated that there were outstanding technical challenges which none of the
deployed systems had addressed in an adequate manner. We review these issues in the following
subsection. [1]

2.2 E-voting: the present status around the world

It is not possible to provide a comprehensive review of REV in every country around the world3.
Instead, we categorize different stages that countries have followed in the adoption of REV and
provide an illustrative example of a single country in each category (where published scientific
papers exist to provide more detailed information), and—were appropriate—list some of the other
countries in a similar stage. (It should be noted that we have not included the USA in our
analysis, as each state acts autonomously in its procedures for administrating elections.)

Promoting adoption in many countries (typically in the developing world), there has been a call
for the adoption of REV as a means of improving the democratic process. In Ghana, there have
been reports of wide-spread electoral fraud, and a subsequent call for the introduction of REV. It
is unlikely that such calls will have a significant impact on the government bodies who currently
control the democratic process. Other countries in a similar phase of promotion are New
Zealand, Greece, Jordan, Nigeria and Turkey Small-scale trials Some countries are trialing the
use of internet voting in a small subset of elections/constituencies (relative to a national
election), where only a small percentage of electors vote by internet. France has mainly focused
on ex-patriot voting, and there is some discussion as to whether REV would be suitable in a
country, like France, which values the tradition of going to the polling station in order to
participate in the democratic process [44]. Other countries in a similar phase of small-scale trials
are Spain and the United Arab Emirates.

Large-scale trials A few countries are trialing the use of internet voting in a significant subset of
elections/constituencies (relative to a national election), where a significant percentage of electors
vote by internet. Australia has held one of the most significant on-line elections—in terms of the
number of participants (280,000 approx.)— during the 2015 New South Wales state elections.
The voters had to declare that they met eligibility criteria which covered ease of access to a
polling station and disability. They could vote using a web browser or by phone, but the vast
majority chose to use the web. An independent security assessment conducted during the election
period found significant ‘security failures and verification flaws’ in the Ann. Telecomm. Vote
system. The security vulnerabilities were due to the introduction of an analytics script from a
third-party server vulnerable to the FREAK and logjam attacks. Although vote did include a
telephone-based method of allowing voters to query what vote had been recorded on their behalf,
only limited data from this system are now available. The most important statistic, the rate of
failures among those voters who attempted to verify, remains unavailable. Another country in a
similar phase of large-scale trials is India. [1]

2.3 E-voting: the future- some recommendations/opinions

from the guest editors
There are a large number of divergent views concerning the future of remote electronic voting,
and it is a subject for which every expert has their own opinion. Rather than trying to provide an
objective analysis of all the different attitudes and beliefs, the following subsection illustrates the
divergent nature of the issue by including a short position statement from each of the two guest
editors of this special issue:

Gibson, J Paul Electronic voting, within the context of democratic government elections, should
be considered as a safety-critical system [40]: it must be both trustworthy for, and trusted by, its
users (the voters, candidates, election administrators and independent observers). Unfortunately,
the history of electronic voting has included a significant number of voting systems that were
neither trustworthy not trusted. Remote electronic voting (using the internet) raises the even more
significant problem of untrustworthy systems being naively trusted by users just because they use
technology with which they seem to be familiar. A central issue is the need for REV system
developers, vendors and procurers to be more honest and open about the requirements that their
systems do (or do not) meet.

As this special issue has shown, the REV research community does not (yet) fully understand the
interactions between all the different requirements. Furthermore, rapid advances in ICTs may
give rise to novel solutions to some of the outstanding issues; but these advances may also render
the problem more complex. The future for REV is sure to hold many surprises, for academics and
industrialists alike. Krimmer, Robert Using ICT in elections has been a topic of intense debates
around the world. In an effort to contribute to this debate [1].

Chapter 3: Overview of E-government in

Selected Countries

3.1 E-voting in Canada

Federal and provincial elections use paper ballots, but electronic voting has been used since at
least the 1990s in some municipalities. Today optical scan voting systems are common in
municipal elections.

There are no Canadian electronic voting standards.

Committee reports and analysis from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario and British
Columbia have all recommended against provincial Internet voting. A federal committee has
recommended against national Internet voting.

Some municipalities in Ontario and Nova Scotia provide Internet voting.

The 2012 New Democratic Party leadership election was conducted partially online, with party
members who were not in attendance at the convention hall able to cast their leadership vote
online. However, for part of the day the online voting server was affected by a denial-of-service
attack, delaying the completion and tabulation of results.

In the 2018 Ontario municipal elections, over 150 municipalities in the Canadian province of
Ontario conducted their elections primarily online, with physical polling stations either
abandoned entirely or limited to only a few central polling stations for voters who could not or
did not want to vote online. On Election Day, however, 51 of those municipalities, all of which
had selected Dominion Voting Systems as their online voting contractor, were affected by a
technical failure. According to Dominion, the company's colocation center provider imposed a
bandwidth cap, without authorization from or consultation with Dominion, due to the massive
increase in voting traffic in the early evening, thus making it impossible for many voters to get
through to the server between 5:00 and 7:30 p.m. All of the affected municipalities extended
voting for at least a few hours to compensate for the outage; several, including Pembroke,
Waterloo, Prince Edward County and Greater Sudbury, opted to extend voting for a full 24 hours
into the evening of October 23. [2]

3.2 E-voting in India

Electronic voting was first introduced in 1982 and was used on an experimental basis in the
North Palaver assembly constituency in the State of Kerala. However the Supreme Court of India
struck down this election as against the law in A. C. Jose v. Sivan Pillai case. Amendments were
made to the Representation of the People Act, 1951 to legalese elections using Electronic Voting
Machines. In 2003, all state elections and by-elections were held using EVMs.

The EVMs were also used during the national elections held for the Parliament of India in 2004
and 2009. According to the statistics available through the mainstream media, more than 400

Million voters (about 60% of India's eligible voters) exercised their franchise through EVMs in
2009 elections. Tallying such a large number of votes took just a few hours.

In India, Voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) system was introduced in 8 of 543
parliamentary constituencies as a pilot project in 2014 Indian general election. VVPAT was
implemented in Luck now, Gandhi agar, Bangalore South, Chennai Central, Jabalpur, Raipur,
Patna Sahib and Mizoram constituencies. Voter-verified paper audit trail was first used in an
election in India in September 2013 in Nose in Nagaland.

Electronic Voting Machines ("EVM") are being used in Indian general and state elections to
implement electronic voting in part from 1999 general election and recently in 2018 state
elections held in five states across India. EVMs have replaced paper ballots in the state and
general (parliamentary) elections in India. There were earlier claims regarding EVMs' tamper
ability and security which have not been proved. After rulings of Delhi High Court, Supreme
Court and demands from various political parties, Election Commission of India decided to
introduce EVMs with voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) system. The VVPAT system was
introduced in 8 of 543 parliamentary constituencies as a pilot project in 2014 general election.
Voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) system which enables electronic voting machines to
record each vote cast by generating the EVM slip, was introduced in all 543 Look sabra
constituencies in 2019 Indian general election.

There are three kinds of electronic voting machines M1, M2 and M3. The most modern M3
EVMs, which are in current use since its introduction in 2013, allow writing of machine code into
the chips at PSU premises itself- Bharat Electronics Limited, Bangalore and Electronics
Corporation of India Limited, Hyderabad. Election Commission of India introduced EVM
Tracking Software (ETS) as a modern inventory management system where the identity and
physical presence of all EVMS/ VVPATs is tracked on real time basis. M3 EVMs has digital
verification system coded into each machine which is necessary to establish contact between its
two component units. There are several layers of seals to ensure it is tamper-proof. Indian EVMs
are stand-alone non-networked machines.

Mesh Saige, an IIT alumnus and IAS officer, demonstrated that the 2009 elections in India when
Congress Party of India came back to power might be rigged. This forced the election
commission to review the current EVMs. [3]

3.3 E-voting in Germany

In Germany the only accredited voting machines after testing by the PTB for national and local
elections are the ESD1 and ESD2 from the Dutch company Neap. About 2000 of them have been
used in the 2005 Bundestag elections covering approximately 2 million voters. These machines
differ only in certain details due to different voting systems from the ES3B hacked by a Dutch
citizen group and the Chaos Computer Club on October 5, 2006. Because of this, additional
security measures have been applied in the municipality elections on 22. October 2006 in
Cottbus, including reading the software from the EPROM to compare it with the source and
sealing the machines.

At the moment there are several lawsuits in court against the use of electronic voting machines in
Germany. One of these reached the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany in February 2007.
Critics cite a lack transparency when recording the votes as intended by the voter and concerns
relating to recounts. Following a 2005 pilot study during the national elections, wide public
support and a unanimous decision by the Senate launched a plan for the implementation of an
optical scan voting system based on digital paper in the 2008 state elections of Hamburg. After
public claims in September 2007 by the Fraction der Grunion/GAL and the Chaos Computer
Club that the system was vulnerable, the Federal Election Office (Bundeswahlamt) found in
public surveys that public distrust of the system was evident. Due to concerns over public
confidence, plans for use of the new voting system were canceled.

Germany ended electronic voting in 2009, with the German Federal Constitutional Court finding
that the inability to have meaningful public scrutiny meant that electronic voting was
unconstitutional. [4]

Chapter 4: E-governance in Nepal

4.1 Background
EG is the use of a variety of information technologies by government agencies in order to
renovate their public services in the course of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of their
service delivery. A number of policy and regulatory frameworks governing the ICT sector
provide a foundation for the DNF. For example, the National ICT Policy introduced in 2015
seeks to enhance the vision of transforming Nepali society into knowledge and information-based
society by harnessing rapid advances in the ICT sector. Similarly, the National Broadband Policy
announced in 2016 puts forth a framework for stimulating broadband access and availability
across the country. Among others, policy emphasis that has been placed on effectively leveraging
Universal Service Access Funds as a means of bridging digital divide will provide a strong
mechanism for expanding broadband access to communities beyond urban areas if implemented
effectively (Kautish et al, 2008, 2012, 2013, 2020). Nepal gained considerable success in cyber
adoption as compared to its neighboring countries, which has been evident from the country’s
growth trend over the following few years. The fast-developing status of social media is a prime
achievement factor for cyber adoption in Nepal.

Facebook users in Nepal are at the count of millions and the number of users sharing videos on
social media has increased tremendously (NTA, 2017). The GoN has highlighted the importance
of changing capability of ICTs and putting these technologies within the larger perspective of its
far-reaching development objectives premised around poverty reduction, as the main principal
goal. Due to this, countries, private sector individuals and people that find the resources to
become more proficient will advance and flourish. Among others, ICTs hold the potential to help
create environments for better governance, with more transparent and well organized civil
services. (Ministry of Information and Communications, 2015). Apart from opportunities, the
changing nature of ICTs offers many challenges from policy views.

4.2 History
The first IT policy of the GoN was drafted in 2000. The IT policy 2000 underwent numerous
amendments and changes; coming up to the IT Policy 2015. The major problem with the
implementation of IT policy 2000 was majorly the political and social instability (Lawoti, 2003).
Several infrastructures and institutions namely HLCIT, NITC, MoEST, MoIC, MoGA, and MoF
initiated the eGMP. The report was then prepared by KIPA (KIPA, 2006). The ETA 2008, which
was considered the outstanding success in IT regulation in Nepal was crucial for the
implementation of EG. The right to information act, 2007 also supported implementation of EG
(Karki, 2007). The establishment of GIDC under NITC was possible with the assistance of
KOICA (KIPA, 2006).

The construction of IT Park in Banepa close to the capital became additional institution formed
under this policy however the plan was not so much successful (MartinChautari, 2014). The
government-owned NTA later privatized and changed into NTC and named Nepal Telecom
(Gautam, 2016). The IT policy of 2010 was enacted following the failure of IT policy 2004.
Further to the eGMP, the draft of the wireless broadband master plan 2012 was prepared by ITU
for the powerful use of broadband generation in Nepal and that stands today as the strongest
strategic planning of EG in Nepal (ITU, 2012). Until date, there are lots of policies, acts and
regulations being published in Nepal for the betterment of ICT services, however, the IT policy of
2015 is still latest policy.
4.3 The current situation of e-Governance in Nepal
Nepal IT Policy 2000 aims to interlink all ministries, departments, and offices with the GoN with
internet to provide services online. The eGMP Consulting Report prepared by KIPA was figured
alongside the most feasible government projects. The mission of the report was to provide
valueadded quality service through ICT. (KIPA, 2006) In addition, the policy highlighted the use
of ecommerce and distant education with having EG at the facilitator role for the government.
ADB reinforced “transformation” program that has prioritized twenty-two services including
NID, driving-license, LRMS and rural e-community (Illawara Technology, 2007).

In the words of Bekkers, EG is the major action plan to improve Nepal’s fragile government.
Since the outcomes on the use of ICTs in public organizations are specific and situation-
dependent, there is a significant need for recording evidence of some pilot EG program
implementations for future reference. (Bekkers, 2007). The availability of updated and
trustworthy information in the government websites (Rani and Kautish, 2018) (Kaur and &
Kautish, 2019) are lagging a lot. The innovative strategies in the EG projects hence ensure that
the government services are not impacted by poor delivery services, this is done by equipping the
surveillance devices over resident’s personal and private information. (Thomas, 2012) The
citizen-oriented data made available on the internet and activities made available on the
smartphones have accumulated a heavy amount of data in unstructured form. Hence, Nepal EGov
services can initiate using the Big Data and Data Mining technologies to resolve many
governmental services that are getting problems due to data inconsistencies. (Shakya, 2018).

4.4 E-Readiness in Nepal

ER is a measure of a country’s readiness and willingness to attain benefits, which arise from the
ICT activities (Kautish et al, 2016, 2018, 2019). ER is widely used to measure ability of a country
to take part in e- activities. ER indicators provide an outline of a country’s situation and can
easily form baseline for comparison and future planning. It also helps in the improvement and
identifying the areas where support is required. It is also one of the useful tools tomeasure the
minimum required levels of infrastructure, education, training, and supportive government
policies to cater to benefit from ICT (Dada, 2006). Nepal’s ER has significantly improved from
the world ranking of 135 in the year 2016 to the world ranking of 117 in the year 2018 with the
improvement of EGDI score of 0.4748 in 2018 in comparison to EGDI score of 0.3458 in 2016.
This indicator shows the improvement of Nepal’s EG index ranking thereby putting the country
towards a significant development in ICT. (UN, 2018). Similarly, the E-Participation Index of
Nepal has jumped tremendously into the world ranking of 55 in 2018 in comparison to that of 89
in 2016. The E-Participation Index (EPI) score has improved from 0.5085 in 2016 to 0.7809 in
2018. This shows that the e- Participation in the country has increased significantly. This
indicates that Nepal is getting better in terms of technology implementation and usage, which
shows that there is a very favorable environment of the implementation of EG in the country.
(UN, 2018).

4.5 Interactive Service model of E-governance

This model also called the government-citizen-government model (G2C2G) is the framework
developed by scientists whereby the government provides services to its citizens with having a
proper consultant with them about the new services. The government takes upon public opinion
before launching the new services for their citizens. This is moreover a win-win situation created
by the combined decision of both the parties. Applications of G2C2G Submission of grievances
and queries by the public to the government

Establishment of the comprehensive communication channels for support used in carrying out
transactions into the online platform for the provision of filing taxes and payment.

4.6 Challenges
Nepal is one of the fast-growing developing countries in Asia with having the latest ICT image of
the first 4G service hosting Asian country in the world. Despite having abundant growth in the
use of IT and mobile devices, the country remains behind in the light of darkness while it comes
to its development in front of western countries; this is strict because of the low literacy rate of
the country. The per capita is too low and the poverty is still pulling back the development of the
nation. The ever fluctuating political instability, corruption and tough geographical vegetation of
the country standstill causing the EG implementation in Nepal to face intense challenge. Nepal is
yet to develop its infrastructure and ability to incorporate full-fledged EG. Below listed are some
of the major challenges for EG implementation in Nepal:
1. Literacy:
The literacy rate of Nepal was only around 64.66% in 2015 (“Nepal | UNESCO UIS,” n.d.)
which is very low in comparing to its neighboring countries. With the presence of multiple
languages and religion in the country, there also exist language issues. English cannot be
considered the third language as most of the population even could not speak and understand
the National language due to illiteracy. (Chapagain, 2006).

2. Lack of human resources:

Today the national economy of Nepal is persistent with the remittance of Nepali migrant
workers staying and working abroad in the Gulf countries. The education system is not so
good and assurance of getting good opportunity is very low in the country, which has
affected the flow of competent human resources outside the country. This has ultimately
created the situation of human resource lagging in the multiple fields of business. On the
other hand, the government personnel selected nationally lags the minimal computer
knowledge requirements leading into their reluctance towards use of technology.

3. Political Uncertainty:
Political uncertainty is the biggest challenge for Nepal. The undeterminable changes in the
country’s political representation have negatively impacted many infrastructure
developments projects in the past and still today the same problem persists uniformly as the
situation never improved in the last decade. The implementation of EG is still lacking which
is evident from the case of NID card itself as the project is getting extended from last few
years and despite the distribution in some part of the country, the project is still in the phase
of public acceptance.

4. Lack of Coordination:
The lack of coordination and senior guidance is one of the biggest challenges ever in Nepal.
(Kharel, 2012). There are very few leaders in Nepal who remained certain with their views
and deeds, the country has a lot of political influence that resulted in low participation of the
experts in coordinating activities. Therefore, the Implementation of EG requires strong
 leadership without which the implementation is impossible.

5. Weak Infrastructure:
Nepal has the most dangerous roads connecting the mountains, hills and terai. Due to the
geographical imbalance of landscape and hardship in transporting the goods around the
country, the minimal infrastructure requirement is also not fulfilled. Most of the government
organizations still are using outdated hardware and equipment to accomplish their daily
transactions.. According to eGMP, the government organizations must develop the
infrastructures in order to achieve the goal, vision, and objectives of EGov. (Purusottam
Kharel, 2013).

4.7 Critical Success Factors for e-Governance

implementation in Nepal
There are some essential components, which must be followed forthe right implementation of
EGov in Nepal, which is listed below:

1. Announcement and Consciousness :

The success of EGov system implementation highly depends on the announcement and
consciousness to the public about the program of development and implementation of EGov.

2. Regular and Periodic Evaluation:

The GoN has been investing significant cost and means towards the study of the
implementation of EG policy and procedures. Therefore, regular and periodic evaluation of
the progress and index of performance needs to be monitored and recorded for the future.

3. Capacity Building :
The capacity-building strategies should be taken into account considering the fact that Nepal
is a geographically diverse country with having different districts are at different levels of
altitude from Terai basin, Hilly basin up to Mountainous region. Therefore, the role of the
capacity building team is at the program level to provide leadership and vision including
policy formulation, preparing roadmaps, prioritization, preparing frameworks and guidelines,
monitoring progress including the capacitymanagement.
4. Technology and Infrastructure :
Technology and Infrastructure, both provide support to the Department of Information
Technology in implementing the EG project. Hence, both of these needs to be adequately
available for use.

5. Monitoring & Evaluation:

The Program Management Unit (PMU) for National EG project must develop a
comprehensive Monitoring & Evaluation MIS system at the program level in order to track
the physical and financial progress of the project.

CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the case study of e-Governance in Nepal showcases a remarkable journey towards
leveraging digital technologies for enhancing governance effectiveness and citizen engagement.
Despite facing challenges such as infrastructure constraints, digital divide, and cybersecurity
concerns, Nepal has made significant strides in implementing various e-governance initiatives.

The adoption of policies like the National Information Technology Policy (NITP), Integrated
Public Service Delivery (IPSD), and the development of citizen-centric portals and mobile
applications has simplified service delivery, improved transparency, and empowered citizens to
actively participate in governance processes. Open data initiatives have further promoted
transparency and accountability by making government data accessible to the public.

The impact of e-governance in Nepal is evident in improved service delivery, enhanced

transparency, and the empowerment of citizens to hold authorities accountable. Looking ahead,
sustained investment in ICT infrastructure, capacity building, and cybersecurity will be crucial
for realizing the full potential of e-governance to drive sustainable development and foster
inclusive growth in Nepal. Through continued innovation and collaboration, Nepal is poised to
build upon its successes in e-governance and further strengthen its position as a digital leader in
the region.
 REFERENCES

[1] Alvarez, R. M., & Hall, T. E. (2020). Point, Click, and Vote: The Future of Internet
Voting. Brookings Institution Press.
[2] Jefferson, D., Rubin, A. D., Simons, B., & Wagner, D. (2021). Analyzing Internet Voting
Security. Communications of the ACM, 47(10), 59-64.
[3] Norris, P. (2019). Electoral Engineering: Voting Rules and Political Behavior. Cambridge
University Press.
[4] Krimmer, R., Triessnig, S., & Volkamer, M. (Eds.). (2020). Electronic Voting. Springer.
[5] Swiss Federal Chancellery. (2019). E-Voting in Switzerland: Implementation and
Experience.
[6] Jefferson, D., Rubin, A. D., Simons, B., & Wagner, D. (2004). Analyzing Internet Voting
Security. Communications of the ACM, 47(10), 59-64.
 DEERWALK INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Tribhuvan University
Faculties of Computer Science

E-VOTING AS APPROACH TO E-GOVERNANCE

LAB REPORT

Submitted to

Mr. Uttam Karki

Department of Computer Science

DWIT College

Submitted by

Dashain Bhandari | 1010

Sarthak Singh | 1031

Sudin Rajbhandari | 1043

Sumegha Shrestha | 1044

May 20, 2024