Design and Implementation of a Web-based Voting Registration System (a Case Study of INEC Lagos)
Chapter One
OBJECTIVES OF STUDY
The main objective of this project work is to design a fully web voter registration system which should be able to:
- Effectively carryout the task of voting automatically and timely.
- Put to an end the indiscriminate alteration of election results by any officer of the electoral commission of Lagos. This will inculcate discipline in the commission and promote their independence.
- Secure ballot papers and elections results from any accident what server and to quickly detect any defaced ballot paper or a ballot paper that is wrongly thumb printed.
- Stop multiple or double voting, forgery in any shape or form and smuggling of ballot papers into ballot boxes. This will restore the integrity of votes cast in any election in Lagos state.
- Generate accurate report and effect a stick knowledge of election results using an on-line computer processing system.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
INTRODUCTION
Election system is an important element of modern representative government. It is so closely tied to the growth and development of democratic, political order, that it is now generally held to be the most important event which indicates the presence or absence of democratic government. The importance attached to elections by regimes shows how far the modern state has become tied to the symbolic impact of this phenomenon. Owing to this important election that is free and fair and rig-free should be ensured. Honest, competent and non-partisan administration should be trained to run elections.
Other researchers have done work in electronic voting; while they may not explicitly mention voting from remote poll sites, their work is nonetheless relevant to any effort at designing or implementing a remote poll site voting system. Lorrie Cranor acknowledges the problems inherent in each kind of voting apparatus, but doesn’t make an overt recommendation on her site for one technology over the rest. Some other academicians like Peter Neumann focus on the immensity of the problem one faces when trying to design and implement a truly secure voting system. They often remind us of Ken Thompson’s Turing acceptance speech and the fact that we really can’t trust any code which we did not create ourselves. Therefore, they tend to be extremely suspicious of proprietary voting machines and their makers who insist that we should “just trust [them].”
Neumann gives a list of suggestions for “generic voting criteria” which suggests that a voting system should be so hard to tamper with and so resistant to failure that no commercial system is likely to ever meet the requirements, and developing a suitable custom system would be extremely difficult and prohibitively expensive.
A voting machine must produce human-readable hardcopy paper results, which can be verified by the voter before the vote is cast, and manually recounted later if necessary.
David Chaum presents a very interesting scheme, whereby voters could get receipts for their votes. This receipt would allow them to know if their votes were included in the final tally or not, and to prove that they voted without revealing any information about how they voted. The security of this scheme depends on visual cryptography developed by Naor and Shamir, and on voters randomly choosing one of two pieces of paper. Mercuri and Neumann advocate the use of this technique in electronic voting systems.
The importance of voters register in the election process cannot be Underestimated. Organizing a modern election is a complex activity, which requires complete data about those who are eligible to vote. From the perspective of electoral administration, the planning process of elections can only be done successfully with an accurate and authentic voters’ register. Activities like logistic planning and management, Election Day coordination and delimitation of Constituencies, wards and polling stations are all tied to the register of voters. Political parties also need the register of voters to prepare for election. An authentic voters’ register distributed to political parties before the Election Day is one feature of transparency of election management bodies. From the foregoing, it could be seen that registration of voters is a prerequisite for free and fair elections.
One major challenge that confronted the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as it prepared for the 2011 elections was the need for a credible voters’ register considering that the one used for the 2007 elections was highly defective and unreliable. As a result, INEC decided to conduct a new voters’ registration exercise. While the Electoral Act 2010 made provision for continuous voters’ registration, this could not take place due to what the Commission characterized as lack of infrastructure, notably inadequate administrative and logistic structures, which in the past, as in 2011, necessitated periodic registration prior to general elections.
Voters’ registration was the first major assignment undertaken by the INEC under the leadership of Prof Attahiru Jega before the 2011 elections. The exercise was conducted from 15 to 29 January 2011 in all the 36 states and the FCT using Direct Data Capture (DDC) machines. The period of the exercise was extended by one week to 7 February 2011. The display of the register took place between 14 and 18 February 2011. A certified register of voters with 73,528,040 voters was published on 2 March 2011.
Based upon the testimonies of representatives of various stakeholders, RERC (Report of the Registration and Election Review Committee) field trips to the six geo-political zones in the country indicate that the voters’ registration exercise was by and large, successful. This was due to a number of factors, which include:
- Reform of Logistislative Framework
- Improved Funding
- New Leadership at INEC
- Involvement of NYSC
- Prior Verification of Polling Centers
- Independence of INEC
- Extension of Registration Period
- Absence of Strategic Operational Plan i.e. Personnel Training.
- Late Arrival of Registration Materials
- Delays in Distribution of Materials
- Technical Capacity of Ad Hoc Staff
- Multiple/Underage Registration
- Display of Voters Register
In view of these findings, RERC (Report of the Registration and Election Review Committee) recommends as follows:
- Strategic Operational Plan
- Continuous Voters Registration
- Creation of New Registration Centers
- DCC Machines/Technical Staff
- INEC/NYSC Members
- Display of Voters Register
- Voter Education
To address the issues discussed above RERC (Report of the Registration and Election Review Committee) recommends as follows:
- INEC should immediately develop a strategic plan with detailed timelines for all its forthcoming activities and develop a checklist necessary to ensure enhanced performance in all forthcoming elections and other INEC assignments.
- The strategic plan should clearly outline duties assigned to staff and the deliverables, the procedures and timelines for the deployment and remuneration of ad hoc staff and security agents participating in the elections.
- INEC should be restructured to ensure professionalism and efficiency in elections management and efficient implementation of the strategic plan.
- The strategic plan should ensure that Electoral Officers are posted in advance of the election to the Local Government Areas where they would be serving.
- Guidelines for Participatory Strategic Planning should include the following:
- Establishment of a Planning Committee to collate the inputs from all retreats and workshops that reviewed the 2011 elections and synthesize them for use in the plan.
- Ensure effective liaison with respective government ministries, departments, agencies and the National Assembly to secure availability of adequate funds for all its activities.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
In this chapter, the source of data methods of collection, the evaluation of the existing system and the organization structure of the system problem are presented.
What is System Analysis?
A system is a collection of activities and elements organized to accomplish a goal. In system analysis, data is collected about the present system. The data is then analyzed and new requirements are determined. System analysis is on determining the requirement for a new system. Three tasks of this phone are gathering data, Analyzing the data, and documenting the analyses.
- Gathering data is done by observation, interviews, and questionnaire and looking at documents, one of which is the organization chart which shows an organizers foundations and levels of management.
- Analyzing data: There are several tools for the analyzing of data which includes checklist, decision tables and system flows charts
- Documenting system analysis: To document and to communicate the finding of phase 2, a system analysis report is prepared for higher management.
METHOD OF DATA COLLECTION USED
- Studying of Procedures Manuals
Written documents on voting System (Nigeria), was read to obtain information on how the system works. This form of date collection was use full in the sense that it sealed light into the present voting system and also enable the system.
- Evaluation of forms.
These provide information that is required within a section of the system and what is contained in. The printed output form shade more knowledge on which department representatives receive each document and where it is sent to after is has being used.
- Interviewing of departmental representatives,
After obtaining thorough understanding of preset system through evaluation of present system through evaluation of forms and manuals. I went further to interview the representatives involve in the actual operation of the system .These people explained more of the system and the basic, reliable because the system put into consideration the basic flows. - Reference to journals
During the interview, there was not enough time for a detailed and articulated provision of answers due to interview questions. Due to this the researcher requested for already written journals on election/voting processes. Kindly enough, the unit was able to release some of the journals to the researcher for references. This to a large extent, added to the researcher’s knowledge about the voting systems.
CHAPTER FOUR
SYSTEM SPECIFICATION AND DESIGN
The goal of the system is to solve the major problems associated with problem as have been pointed earlier, include:
- Duplicate Registration and voting.
- Rigging and other electoral malpractices.
In hire with the techniques of software Engineering, the design of the new system was modularized into three stages. They are:
- Design of user interface.
- Design of the program structure.
- The detailed design.
The user interface is the program as it is seen and used by the user. The program structure specifies how the various modules of the software interacts with one another for example, how the Registration module interacts with the voting module to ensure that only registered voters vote. In detailed design, the design of the system is handled at the intra-module level.
CHAPTER FIVE
SYSTEM REQUIREMENT AND IMPLEMENTION
The purpose of this section is to highlight on the implementation environment of the system. This covers the hardware and software environments for the implementation phase of the system design and development. A top-down design approach was used in structuring the program. The system consists of modules and sub-modules which are linked up to facilitate easy flow of data and control.
SOFTWARE REQUIREMENT
Software is a collection of programs or instructions written in any computer language, which enables flexibility to do whatever the user wants.
This package can only be run and developed with the following minimum software requirements:
- Windows XP, Vista or Window 7
- Visual Basic Compiler 6
- Microsoft Access 2003 version
SYSTEM SOFTWARE
These are of software written by system programmers that interprets instructions contained in the application software (program) and then provide the basic instruction to the central processor so that the various hardware units, which make up the computer system, can function as desired or intended. Example is DOS.
System software manages and controls computer hardware so that application software can perform a test. Operating systems such as, Microsoft OS. System software contrasts with application software, which is a program that enables the end-user to perform specific, productive tasks, such as word processing or image manipulation.
System software performs tests like transferring date from memory to disk, or rendering text onto a display device. Specific kinds of system software include loading programs, operating systems device drivers, programming tool compilers, assemblers, linkers, and utility software. If system software is stored on non- volatile memory such as integrated circuits, it is usually termed firmware. This refers to the operating system and all utility programs that manage computer resources at a low level.
CHAPTER SIX
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
CONCLUSIONS
Election is the only means of upholding sound democracy and ensuring stability in the political system of many countries. The electoral process is so cumbersome that it needs only a body of officials who are advanced in standards of honesty and routing competence for it success. Therefore in this study, we analyzed the political nature of election process in Nigeria, appraised its short coming and proposed a design of computerized voter’s system to prevent rigging and whims of nay electoral officer or incumbent government.
If this work is implemented, it will go a long way in eradicating on ravaged socio-political structure which has been the bane of peace, unity, stability and prosperity in the country. All illegal means of acquiring more votes to favor a particular party or candidate would be a thing of the past.
To sum up, this project clarifies the requirements and key elements of web-based voting system, and my implementation provides the following features. To begin with, the accuracy of voter’s identity and ballot card are ensured with this voting system. Next, voter’s identities are not written in the ballot card to protect voter’s privacy and confidentiality. This system will validate whether the ballot card is authorized or not, to make sure only legal user can vote, and voter’s authorities are limited in order to prevent his violation. Furthermore, this system fits in with the parts of principles proposed by IPI (international peace institute), including secrecy, non-forcibility, integrity, and uniqueness.
But because of the limitation of incomplete laws and regulations, absentee voting can’t be held. It still needs to be discussed in legislative systems. In the future, to eliminate maladministration and human destruction, setting up a strongly secure web-based voting system is necessary. It can speed up the electoral procedures, make ballot counting efficiently, and use resource effectively.
RECOMMENDATION
Having seen the problem encountered in using the old system of voting, the following are recommends.
I recommend that INEC should employ this system of web-based voting and the staffs that will be handing this software package be given training on computer bases on how to use the new system.
REFREENCES
- Adeoye, A. (1981), The Nigeria press and the 1979 General Elections, Macmillan press
- Jega, A. (2011). “Report of the 2011 General Elections” Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Nigeria
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- Ake, C (2001) Democracy and Development in Africa, Ibadan: Spectrum Books.
- Chiazor, I. k. N.(2008). Design and implement of a hospital management Enugu: Unpublished (Project work). Pg 30-37
- Penny, H. (2000). Process control system. Britain: John Murry Publication Ltd
- Ekwueme. O. (1980), Institutional structure and conflict in Nigeria, lanham university press
- Billy. D. (1982) An introduction to Nigeria Government and politics, Macmillan press, London
- Olyode F.A. (1992). Computerization of study system ESUT
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