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DESIGN AND IMPLEMENT AN E-VOTING SYSTEM FOR STUDENT UNION GOVERNMENT (SUG), NNAMDI AZIKIWE UNIVERSITY, AWKA, ANAMBRA STATE.

1.1 Background of the Study

Voting is a process by which a person or a group of people expresses an opinion formally or officially. Although people vote in many situations (such as when students elect class officers at school), voting usually refers to the act of citizens choosing candidates for public office or deciding on public issues and laws.

Long ago, the voting system of Nnamdi Azikiwe University Student Union (NAUSU) is based on traditional paper ballots. Polling booth will be made available for each faculty in the school where student of each department of that faculty can cast their vote. Members of inaugurated electoral committee will be present at each polling booth to supervise and coordinate the voting process. The materials present at each polling booth, are empty ballot boxes where voter will cast their vote, a ballot paper which contains all the candidates name, pictures and empty box drawn besides each person where voter will tick to indicate their choice and a marker to change voters status by marking the thumb of their finger. The voting process is in this wise, all voters are to visit the polling booth of the faculty where there department belongs to.

The inaugurated electoral committees present at the polling booth are to coordinate voters. Firstly, they have to check the eligibility of voter by prompting him/her to provide his/her school identity card. Secondly, they have to check the thumb of the voter’s finger if there is ink there to know the voting status of the voter so to know if he/she can proceed. If the voter failed to pass all these checks he/she will not be allowed to go further else he/she can advance to go and pick a ballot paper which contains all the candidates’ names, pictures and empty square box where he/she will tick (the voter will tick only inside the empty box beside the choice of his/her candidate name/picture) any ticking linking two empty boxes or unclear ticking will be counted as invalid vote.

At the end of the voting process, the ballot papers for each candidate is counted by electoral committee member immediately at each polling booth (each faculty) and the winner at each polling booth will be announced immediately after the counts. Then the ballot boxes at each polling booth will be transported to electoral committee office. At the electoral committee office result at each polling booth is confirmed and the total counting will be held and then the winner of the election will be determined. The electoral committee will then officially report the result of election to the school management and also to the public (students and staffs).

Technology has always influenced and shaped the ways election are held. The rapid advancement in information and communications technologies has given rise to new applications that were impossible just few years ago. Electronic voting systems provide some characteristic different from the traditional voting technique, and also it provides improved features of voting system over traditional voting system such as accuracy, convenience, flexibility, privacy, verifiability and mobility. In electronic voting, Users are individuals who interact with the system. All user interaction is performed remotely through the user’s web browser when the system is web based. Users are categorized into three classes: Administrator, Returning Officers and Voters.

A running version of the system will have only one Administrator but it typically has multiple returning officers and voters. The administrator is responsible for managing user accounts, polls, system resources and logs and for the health and safekeeping of the system. Returning officers have the responsibility of managing a poll as assigned by the administrator, whereas voters only have the ability to submit ballots on polls in which they are admitted.

• Statement of the Problems

The inefficiency of voting process in SUG elections has resulted in a lot of problems.  These problems have continued to obstruct the peace and tranquility of elections as the choice of a capable candidate is not encouraged by the existing system.

These problems include:

1. High rigging during electoral process.
2. A single voters casting his vote multiple times.

• Inefficient and inaccurate counting of voters by officers concerned.

1. Long queues observed at polling stations.
2. Illegible voters casting their vote.
3. 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.

1.3 Aim and Objectives of the Study

The aim of this study is to design and implement an e-voting system for Student Union Government (SUG), Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra state.

The objectives are;

1. To develop a secured website for easy voting during SUG election.
2. To allow only registered and certified voters to have access to the application.

• To ensure that all Voters are protected against any attempt of identified theft.

1. To allow each voter to be able to vote only once.
2. To ensure that nobody have access to the votes before the official opening of the electronic ballot box.
3. To ensure that the votes cast cannot be intercepted, modified or diverted.

• To restrict the system from accepting the vote outside the voting period.

1.4 Significance of the Study

A voting system contains rules for valid voting, and how votes are counted and aggregated to yield a final result. Common voting systems are majority rule, proportional representation or plurality voting with a number of variations and methods such as first-past-the-post or preferential voting. In election systems, protecting the integrity and privacy of critical data (e.g., votes, configurations, and ballot definitions) is undeniably important.

1.5 Scope of the Study

The scope of the project is that it will use the UserID and password created by user during registration in the voting system, through this all the details of voter are saved in database. And it will act as the main security to the voting system. The study also covers voting processes as it is done at the SUG elections in various tertiary institutions. It also inculcates the voters’ personal records, candidates’ personal records and voting procedures.

1.6 Limitations of Study

Some of the constraints that may have in one-way or another affected the outcome of this work include:

1. Lack of adequate fund to finance the project: this was one of the limitation to this work because much money is needed to carry out a detailed research work which is not easily borne by every student.
2. The limited knowledge of ASP.net and Visual Basic programming was great challenge to this project. However, more research was made to complete this project successfully.

1.7 Definition of Terms

Ballot Box: A container in which voters drop their votes.

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

Ballot: A vote recorded in an election.

Collection Centre: A designated location where results are collected.

Computer: Computer is an electronic device operating the control of instructions stored in its memory that can accept data (input) manipulate the data according to a specified rules (processing) produces result output and stores the result for future use.

Data processing: is defined as the entire process of converting or manipulating data into definite meaningful information.

Data: It is the facts collected for decision making they are facts that are kept to be processed to get more information.

Database Management System (DBMS): it is software which controls the flow of data and checks and checks on how data are stored.

Database: is an organized /unique collection of related files. It is a collection of schemas, tables, queries, reports, views and other object.

Design: is the art or process of designing how something will look, work.

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

Electronic Data Processing Equipment (EDP): it is a machine that performs the work of data manipulation.

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.

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

HTML: Hyper Text Mark-up Language.

Information: is a processed data that can be read and understand.

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

Poll: The process of voting at an election.

Registration: This is the process of supplying peculiar information of a student to the school in order to be given a registration number as a bonafide student.

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

Security: This helps to prevent unauthorized users from illegally accessing certain data within the database, it protects your data/ files.

SUG election: Student Union Government elections.

System: Is the collection of hardware and software, data information procedure and people.

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

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

Voting System: Is a method by which voters make a choice between options, often in an election or on a policy referendum.

Web Site: It is a location on the web that publishes some kinds of information.