Electronic voting machine

Project Title

Electronic voting machine

Project Area of Specialization Electrical/Electronic EngineeringProject Summary

The system proposed in this thesis will convert the current manual system to an electronic equivalent and thus make it easier for the people who are not able to cast their votes due to shortage of time and due to not having trust on current voting system. We have developed a secure e-Voting system based on biometric fingerprint method with RFID Scanner. With the implementation of this system we can get rid of all the traditional voting system problems and we will have an ideal election process containing all properties of a system like accuracy, loving democracy, verifiability, convenience, and fastness. This is a system in which power is in system’s hand rather than human being.
A system giving immediate results right after session time expires. Only requires onetime cost of implementation, once system is implemented, Same machines and software is used every time, then Cost free election means there will be no paper and printing cost and there will be no need to hire Presiding officers hence time and cost will be saved. 

Project Objectives

For our Project we formulated research question as follows: 
 
Based on the effectiveness of currently employed variants of e-voting what factors can make e- voting success in Pakistan? 
 Definitions of words from the research questions:
Effectiveness 
“Ability to achieve stated goals or objectives, judged in terms of both output and impact.” In the case of electoral system, effectiveness means “The power of a ballot to influence the election outcome.”  In our work we focus  on  the  replacing of paper-based voting with electronic one. So ballots will be replaced by electronic votes. In our research we are going to measure Effectiveness with these 4 criteria
Costs 
Resources 
Investments 
Time 
Casting a vote 
Calculation of the results 
Results  
Correct results 
Avoiding human errors 
Transparency 
We divide users of the e-voting system in 3 groups 
Voters 
Government 
Electoral candidates 
For voters these criteria of effective e-voting system are important: 
Time 
Transparency 
Correct results 
Easy-to-use system 
For Government important criteria of effective e-voting system are: 
Cost 
Time 
Results 
For electoral candidates most important criteria of effective e-voting system are: 
Time 
Transparency 
Correct results 

Success: 
“An event that accomplishes its intended purpose”  
In case of e-voting success means being effective system to replace paper-based voting. In our system the intended purpose of the e-voting system is to satisfy the needs of the following groups of users: 
Voters
Government 
Electoral candidates 
From voters perspective e-voting system will be successful if: 
It will be easy-to-use system. 
One will be able to make fast voting and get results faster than it was provided with paper-based system (time factor) 
It will not be a complicated process (transparency factor) 
Systems reliability, security and objectivity will provide correct voting results (results factor)
From Government perspective e-voting system will be successful if: 
Price of this system will be affordable and not much sensitive for the budget (price factor) 
It will be reusable with minimum costs involved and would be able to work in the long-term perspective 
It will provide results fast (time factor) 
There will be fewer complaints from voters and electoral candidates about the procedure and results of the elections (transparency and results factor) 
It will eliminate human factor errors 
Form the electoral candidate’s perspective e-voting system will be successful if: 
They will get faster results of the voting (time factor) 
They will be sure that these results of the voting are correct (results factor) 
They will be able to monitor electoral process at any time (transparency factor) 

Project Implementation Method

Different Phase Of Whole Process
The implementation mechanism consists in following processes.
First Step is the registering of voter. For this step following info is required i.e. Voter’s image, thumb expression and his/her Smart National Identity Card (SNIC) is stored in data base. In project we have used University of Lahore ID card instead of SNIC.
Second Step is Generation of Candidate List. For this step following information is required i.e. Candidate SNIC card, Election Symbol Allocation, and live image of Candidate, all this is stored in data base.
Third Step is Vote Casting Process, in this process first voter is identified by his/her ID card using RFID scanner then ask for thumb expression scanning. If voter is valid and registered voter only then he/she is allowed to cast vote.  
Fourth and last step is Result of Voting Process. Results are shown by using Crystal report and can be used for further (if required).
Registration
Registering of information is of two types.
Registration of voter information. 
Registration of candidate information. 
For registration data is store in SQL Server. It’s a software product whose primary function is to store and retrieve data as requested by other software applications, be it those on the same computer or those running on another computer across a network. Registration process is done in server end and only administrator has access to server end.
 Registration of voter
Registration of voter consists on storing voter information in database.
Following fields are needed for registration of voter.
Voter name
 His/hers Father
 Address of voter
 CNIC number 
RFID of Voter Card
Thumb expression.
All data is stored in data base. To get rid of any ambiguity thumb expression is taken four times by using digital persona engine and CNIC information stored using RFID.
After entering all data Interface of registering a voter is shown in figure below. A voter is entering his/her name, Father Name, Address and CNIC. Thumb expressions are also saving.

Benefits of the Project

Design Methodology
All the systems that are based on biometric mechanisms are client-server architectures, in client-server architectures administrator has privileges to manage the system. In this project we designed a biometric based secure e- Voting system for Pakistan election commission. The architecture of our system is shown in Figure 10 

Figure 10: Architecture of our system
Microsoft biometric fingerprint device having built in libraries is used to integrate fingerprint control to the system. The server side is the Election Commission Pakistan (ECP) where a database is maintained about all the voters and candidates’ information having got being confirmed from National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA). On every client machine a local database server is maintained which stores 

the data of voters in order to decrease the traffic load on the network.
Client Architecture

Figure 11: Client Architecture
At client end voter has privilege to cast his/ her vote. In order to cast a vote first of all a voter scans his/her RFID card. If voter not exist then voter’s image is taken and waits for new voter, otherwise if voter exist he/she is directed to scans his/her thumb expression. If thumb expression is matched with the thumb expression stored in database then new page is displayed showing candidates list to cast the vote. Voter selects his/her choice and vote is saved. After vote casting process all data is saved in data base and all process refresh for new voter and waits for new voter.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

Voter’s Vote casting

Figure 13: Voter’s vote casting            
In figure 13 Vote casting process is explained with the help of flow chart. vote casting process starts by checking either voter is registered or not. If voter is registered then it checks that either voter already vote casted or not. If voter not cast vote then it goes to thumb expressions matching. If thumb expression is matched with the thumb expression stored in database then new page is displayed showing candidates symbol list to cast the vote. Voter selects his/her choice and vote is saved. After vote casting all data is saved in data base and all process refresh for new voter and waits for new voter.

                                                                                                                                      

                                       
Inserting candidate’s Information

Figure 14: inserting candidate’s information
In figure 14 candidate’s registering and entering process in database is explained Inserting of candidate’s information starts with the updating candidate’s name, Father’s name, and his / her address and CNIC number. After updating basic information image has taken and electoral symbol is assigned. After this all the data is submitted and stored in database.                                                                                                                                                                                          
Inserting data in Database
As we want to insert the data into data base. So for that purpose initialize the data object and data access layer. After that data will be entered in data object. After entering data in database it calls ‘insert function’. So by that process data will be inserted in database.

Final Deliverable of the Project Hardware SystemCore Industry ITOther Industries Security Core Technology Big DataOther Technologies Augmented & Virtual RealitySustainable Development Goals Gender EqualityRequired Resources

Item Name	Type	No. of Units	Per Unit Cost (in Rs)	Total (in Rs)
			Total in (Rs)	28000
Electronic Voting Machine	Equipment	4	7000	28000