ABSTRACT

This project is based on the activities carried out to transform a traditional voting system used in
universities and colleges into an online voting application. The project includes thorough
explanation of all the stages involved in the progress of this project. This proposal will include
the initial reading to understand the way traditional voting system works, different stages of it
and the issues related to the traditional way of voting that gave the spark to develop the online
voting application.

This proposal also discusses the advantages of the online voting system that motivate different
institutions and organizations to develop the online voting application. This report also discusses
the key issues that need to be considered during the development of this project. This report also
discusses the problems I encountered while developing this system

This write up will show the design of the project, time schedule, budget and the information of
the tools and techniques that are to be used to implement this application. And obviously the
testing part that is always important in the success of any information system.

i
Contents
ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................................................... i
List of abbreviation ...................................................................................................................................... iii
List of figure ............................................................................................................................................. iii
CHAPTER ONE .............................................................................................................................................. iv
INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................ iv
BACKGROUND OF STUDY .......................................................................................................................... 1
1.2 PROBLEM DEFINITION .................................................................................................................. 3
SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY........................................................................................................................... 3
OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT.................................................................................................................... 4
PROJECT JUSTIFICATION ....................................................................................................................... 4
SCOPE OF STUDY ................................................................................................................................... 5
CHAPTER TWO .............................................................................................................................................. 6
LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................................................................. 6
The security issues of online voting .......................................................................................................... 9
CHAPTER THREE .......................................................................................................................................... 10
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .................................................................................................................... 10
Methodology........................................................................................................................................... 10
SSADM ............................................................................................................................................... 10
System Study ........................................................................................................................................... 13
Description of the Existing Voter Registration System ....................................................................... 13
Problems with the Existing Voter Registration System .......................................................................... 13
System Implementation Technologies.................................................................................................... 14
SOFTWARE .............................................................................................................................................. 14
HARDWARE ............................................................................................................................................. 15
Proposed budget ........................................................................................ .‫خطأ! اإلشارة المرجعية غير مع ّرفة‬
Project time schedule ................................................................................ .‫خطأ! اإلشارة المرجعية غير مع ّرفة‬
Gantt chart ................................................................................................. .‫خطأ! اإلشارة المرجعية غير مع ّرفة‬
References: ................................................................................................................................................. 15

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APPENDIX .................................................................................................................................................... 16
QUESTIONNAIRE ON ELECTORAL BODY .................................................................................................. 17

List of abbreviation
SSADM: The Structured Systems Analysis and Design Method

E- voting: Electronic voting.

HTML: Hypertext Markup Language.

PHP: hypertext preprocessor.

MySQL: my structured query language.

DRE: direct-recording electronic voting systems

List of figure
1. SSADM: diagram showing ssadm modules.
2. Budget table
3. Gant chart

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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Democracy is an important matter in most modern societies. One of the most important activities
within a democracy is the election of representatives. It is also a very delicate process that is the
subject of various disturbances, such as inactive citizens, attempts of fraud etc. In this report I
will discuss some of these problems, starting from the current democratic situation in
Kenyan universities and colleges. I will also propose a software solution to the problem in terms
of a prototype that will display the most important aspects of this problem.
“VARSITY ONLINE VOTING SYSTEM” is an online voting technique which is secure, fair
and efficient. In this system students who have been registered in any university or college in
Kenya are allowed to cast their votes using an online platform which is to be provided by Varsity
e-voter. There is a database which is maintained by the university/college electrical commission
administrator in which all the names of registered students with complete information is stored.

In “VARSITY E-VOTER” a student can exercise his\her voting right online without any
difficulty. He\She has to be registered first for him/her to vote. Registration is mainly done by
the system administrator for security reasons. The system Administrator registers the voters on a
special site of the system visited by him only by simply filling a registration form to register
voter. Once a student is registered by a university or a college the details of registration are
transferred system administrator. After the validity of registration details has been confirmed by
the system administrator by comparing their details submitted with those in existing databases
such as those as the Registrar of academics, the student is then registered by the electoral body of
the concerned university or college.

After registration, the student is assigned a secret Username and Password with which he/she can
use to log into the system and enjoy services provided by the system such as voting, checking
results among others. If invalid/wrong details are submitted, then the student is not registered to
vote.

iv
BACKGROUND OF STUDY
All the universities/colleges in Kenya carry out their annual election to determine the student
leader and his/her new cabinet members.in every one year students are allowed to vote in their
best leader through polling. This can take 15-20 members of university/college ruling group.

That is to say, in any given university elections, students vote for the president/chairman/student
leader and the members of his or her cabinet.

Most university Electoral bodies right from their inception to date, even with latest
advancements in technology, still use a primitive paper based methods during voting; this system
is characterized by manual form filling to choose leaders and transfer of the information from
manual data capture forms to computerized datasheets, this has led to an excessive number of
mistakes making their way into the final vote counts hence leading to confusion at the time of
announcing the results. The main advantage of paper-based systems is that ballot papers are
easily human auditable. The disadvantages outweigh the advantages for instance the need to print
ballot papers is a slow, expensive, inflexible, environmentally hostile process, visual
impairments, or literacy limitations and also last minute changes to the voter register are difficult
to accommodate among others.

Over the last few years, there have been a number of election observers who have suggested
electoral organizations should introduce electronic voting in all universities and also at national
level. A general observation is that as more business is done using electronic mediums, it should
not be difficult to carry out voting using electronic equipment rather than turning up at the
polling place on voting day to use paper and pen. The Varsity Online Voting System under
implementation mainly addresses the voting phase. Electronic voting using the online platform
should be cheaper than the present paper based arrangement of most universities/colleges in
Kenya. The phenomenal use of the Internet as a vehicle for improving communication, access to
information and electronic commerce has led to the claim that the Internet could be used as either
a replacement to attendance voting or as an additional voting option. Throughout history,
election fraud has occurred in many electoral processes from which experience shows that the
manual voting process is a major source of such vices and violence in university, This is
evidently a result of poor techniques applied in registration, updating and displaying of voters’
1
register by the concerned bodies and therefore there is need to further fine tune both the
registering and voting process to minimize incidences of “missing names” on the registers and
canvassing of votes during voting.

The Varsity Online voting system also known as varsity e-voting is a term encompassing several
different types of voting embracing both electronic means of counting votes. 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.

Online voting is an electronic way of choosing leaders via a web driven application. The
advantage of online voting over the common “queue method” is that the voters have the choice
of voting at their own free time and there is reduced congestion. It also minimizes on errors of
vote counting. The individual votes are submitted in a database which can be queried to find out
who of the aspirants for a given post has the highest number of votes.

This system is geared towards increasing the voting percentage in universities and colleges since
it has been noted that with the old voting method {the Queue System}, the voter turnout has been
a wanting case. With system in place also, if high security is applied, cases of false votes shall be
reduced.

With the “VARSITY ONLINE VOTING SYSTEM”, a student can use his\her voting right
online without any difficulty. He\She has to be registered as the student of concerned
university/college first before being authorized to vote. The registration should be done prior to
the voting date to enable data update in the database.

However, not just anybody can vote. For one to participate in the elections, he/she must have the
requirements. For instance, he/she must be a registered by the university as a student with valid
administration number and national ID number. As already stated, the project ‘Online Voting'
provides means for fast and convenient voting and access to this system is limited only to
registered voters.

2
This project is geared towards addressing problems encompassing manual voting systems that
have been in place ever since independence.

Internet voting systems are appealing for several reasons which include; People are getting more
used to work with computers to do all sorts of things, namely sensitive operations such as
shopping and home banking and they allow people to vote far from where they usually live,
helping to reduce absenteeism rate.

1.2 PROBLEM DEFINITION

The voting/polling process by registered students in colleges and universities is very
cumbersome. So many cases of missing data in the student registration files have been reported.
There are also scenarios where unregistered students flock in the polling centers as “Dead
Voters” to participate in the voting process. Even after voting, malicious clerks and officers-in-
charge of a polling station end up playing with the results figures. This results in the release of
wrong results leading to cases of violence and strikes.

Such cases can be solved by insisting on voters exercising that task online using the varsity
e-voting platform. The registered students can also vote from anywhere around the globe, they
don’t need to travel back to their respective institution to vote during election time in case they
are outside the institution.

SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY
The main purposes of e-voting include:

 Reduction of the costs incurred by the electoral commission of universities during voting
time in paying the very clerks employed for the sake of the success of the manual system.

 Check to ensure that the students who are registered are the only ones to vote. Cases of
“Dead People” voting are also minimized.

 Provision of improved voting services to the students through fast, timely and convenient
voting.

3
  Online voting system will require being very precise or cost cutting to produce an
effective election management system.

 Therefore crucial points that this system emphasizes on are listed below.

i. Require less number of staff during the election.

ii. This system is a lot easier to independently moderate the elections and
subsequently reinforce its transparency and fairness.

iii. Less capital, less effort, and less labor intensive, as the primary cost and effort
will focus primarily on creating, managing, and running a secure online portal.

iv. Increased number of voters as individual will find it easier and more convenient
to vote, especially those who live outside the institution.

OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT

The specific objectives of the project include:

1. Reviewing the existing/current voting process or approach in multimedia university;

2. Coming up with an automated voting system in the university;

3. Implementing an automated/online voting system;

4. Validating the system to ensure that only legible students are allowed to vote.

PROJECT JUSTIFICATION
The VARSITY ONLINE VOTING SYSTEM shall reduce the time spend making long queues at
the polling stations during voting. It shall also enable the student to vote from any part of the
country as explained since this is an online application available on the internet. Cases of vote
miscounts shall also be solved since at the backend of this system resides a well-developed
database using MYSQL that can provide the correct data once it’s correctly queried. Since the
voting process shall be open as early as possible, the voters shall have ample time to decide when
and whom to vote for.

4
SCOPE OF STUDY
It is focused on studying the existing system of voting in our universities and colleges and to
make sure that the peoples vote is counts, for fairness in the elective positions. This is also will
produce:

 Less effort and less labor intensive, as the primary cost and focus primary on creating,
managing, and running a secure web voting portal.
 Increasing number of voters as individuals will find it easier and more convenient to
vote, especially those abroad.
LIMITATION OF STUDY
Time factor was the greatest barrier to the successful completion of this exercise since it had to
be done within one semester. I also had financial constraints since all the activities involved were
self-sponsored.

5
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Online voting has been considered as the reliable way to replace the older manual voting. The
Kenyan General elections of 2007 brought national attention to problems with current methods
of casting and counting votes in public elections. Most people believe that the current system
should be changed; there is much disagreement on how such changes should be made. Since the
use of computers is highly integrated in all universities and colleges in Kenya, it will be easier to
start using the varsity e-voting system because of the availability of this infrastructure.

Many students advocate using the online system since it reduces cases of uncounted, unmarked,
and spoiled ballots and the cost of travelling back to institution for voting.

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.

Cranor, L.F., & Cytron, R.K. (1996), 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

6
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.

According to Enokela J.A. (2009) the application of electronic voting systems in elections can
solve many problems associated with the traditional method of conducting elections. The
problems of multiple registrations of voters, multiple voting by individuals, stuffing of ballot
boxes, inflation of votes cast, and bandwagon effect can be solved.
Armen C. and Morelli R. [9, (2005)] .The inadequacy or complete absence of security policies in
the implementation of many electronic voting systems has contributed to their vilification by
many researchers.

In the recent years, voting equipment which were widely adopted in many countries may be
divided into five types.

1. Paper-based voting: The voter gets a blank ballot and use a pen or a marker to
indicate he want to vote for which candidate. Hand-counted ballots is a time and
labor consuming process, but it is easy to manufacture paper ballots and the ballots
can be retained for verifying, this type is still the most common way to vote.

2. Lever voting machine: Lever machine is peculiar equipment, and each lever is
assigned for a corresponding candidate. The voter pulls the lever to poll for his
favorite candidate. This kind of voting machine can count up the ballots
automatically. Because its interface is not user-friendly enough, giving some training
to voters is necessary.

3. Direct recording electronic voting machine: This type, which is abbreviated to

DRE, integrates with keyboard; touch screen, or buttons for the voter press to poll.
Some of them lay in voting records and counting the votes is very quickly. But the
other DRE without keep voting records are doubted about its accuracy.

7
 4. Punch card: The voter uses metallic hole-punch to punch a hole on the blank ballot.
It can count votes automatically, but if the voter’s perforation is incomplete, the
result is probably determined wrongfully.

5. Optical voting machine: After each voter fills a circle correspond to their favorite
candidate on the blank ballot, this machine selects the darkest mark on each ballot for
the vote then computes the total result. This kind of machine counts up ballots
rapidly. However, if the voter fills over the circle, it will lead to the error result of
optical-scan.

Effectiveness of E-voting Among Different Countries

Recent years, a considerable number of countries has adopted E-voting for their official
elections. In this section, four empirical examples are enumerated as following.

(1) America: Government of the United States hold election collaterally in several ways, in
other words, each state can choose the suitable way to hold elections independently.
Because there are some debates about E-voting, such as some vote casts were not
counted, or election system crashed during the Election Day. Secretary of State Kevin
Shelley established an “Ad Hoc Touch Screen Task Force” to research the debates on
DRE in February 2003 [1]. Shelly advanced that DRE should include voter verifiable
paper audit trails (VVPAT) to solve electoral debates.

(2) Japan: Japan adopted E-voting for local election in 2002, such as mayor and councilor
election of Niimi city in Okayama prefecture in June 23, 2002; mayor election of
Hiroshima city in February 02, 2003; and mayor election of Kyoto city in February 08,
2004. Take mayor and councilor election of Niimi city for example, electoral center
surveyed the voters’ reliability when the election finished. There are 83% of voters
considered that E-voting system is trusted. 56% of them considered that the results of E-
voting and paper-based voting are the same therefore E-voting is sufficient for reliable.
The reasons why voters can’t trust the E-voting system are voters worried about the
abuses in E-voting system, and they cannot make sure their ballot are recorded correctly.
8
 (3) Belgium: Election for the Federal Parliament is held in May 18, 2003. In order to assist
voters in being familiar with E-voting system, electoral center held short-term training.
Counting efficiency in the election with E-voting system was faster than convention.
Belgium’s compulsory voting system and E-voting complement each other, voters’
satisfaction and attending willingness of join voting are improved obviously.

(4) Brazil: Brazil used E-voting in 1998. When the voter reaches the polling place, he shows
his identity card for authenticating; if he is an eligible voter, he can get the ballot for E-
voting. Brazil’s E-voting system transmits votes to electoral center immediately, so that
the count of votes can announce rapidly while the voting finished.

The security issues of online voting

Foreign experience revealed that they are often confronted by security issues while the online
voting system is running. The origin of the security issues was due to not only outsider (such as
voters and attackers) but also insider (such as system developers and administrators), even just
because the inheritance of some objects in the source code are unsuitable. These errors caused
the voting system to crash.

The proposed solutions were correspondingly outlined to hold back these attacks. For example,
to avoid hacker making incursion into the voting system via network, we can design our system
to transmit data without network. Another example is to limit voter to input particular data, so
that we can prevent the command injection from running.

9
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
In this chapter, the source of data methods of collection, the evaluation of the existing system
and the system problem are presented. It includes specific methods which were used in order to
achieve the objectives of the project, in particular requirements for implementation of the project
and a brief explanation of why such methods were used for implementing the proposed system,
also included is a brief description of the current system of voting.

Methodology
Using a methodology you can:

i. Control change and scope;

ii. Monitor time, cost and quality
iii. Create a project roadmap;

iv. Minimize risks and issues;

SSADM
SSADM stands for structured system analysis and design method. The Structured Systems
Analysis and Design Method (SSADM) is an approach to designing and analyzing information
systems developed in the United Kingdom in 1980. This method uses logical data modeling,
entity event modeling and data flow modeling in a 5-step process to determine how a system
must be created or updated. (EHow, 2013) It is a prescriptive methodology that combines many
techniques and integrates them into a system development life cycle.

As discussed by Philip, Nicholas & Matthew (2002, pg. 7-11) SSADM consists of three main
components:

i. The default structure or framework of an SSADM project

The SSADM default structural model is based on a series of modules that begin
with a feasibility study and end with the physical design. The modules are as
shown in the figure below:

10
 Feasibility Study

Requirements Analysis

Requirements Specification

Logical System Specification

Physical Design

a. Feasibility study- here the scope of the proposed project is defined using some of
the SSADM’ core techniques to produce a high- level overview of processing and
data. Several options for taking the project forward to a full SSADM study are
looked at and a single option is selected by balancing the benefits against cost. A
decision to abandon the project might be taken if the project is found not to be
feasible.

b. Requirements analysis- here a full analysis of requirements is done by modeling

the current system with a view to drawing out existing problems and new
requirements. Analyzing the current system helps us understand the functionality
required of the new system, it increases users confidence in the project developers
ability to understand the requirements of the new system, it increases the chances
of identifying a complete set of requirements, it provides an effective way for
11
 analyst to become familiar with the business area under investigation and the
project scope and complexity can be deduced quite effectively from those of the
current system. Through analyzing the current system the analyst is able to come
up with a comprehensive statement of user requirements which are examined and
several options are developed for solving the business problem.

c. Requirements specification- this is where the user requirements are transformed

and redefined into detailed and precise specification of what the system is required
to do.

d. Logical system specification- here the development of the logical design is

continued and the technical environment where the system will finally reside is
chosen. Specification resulting from requirement specification provides us with
enough information to propose alternative technical environments on which to
implement our system design. The logical nature of the design means that it
should reflect underlying business rules and activities rather than physical
constraints.

e. Physical design- here the logical design is translated into the physical design
based on the selected technical environment.

Advantages:
i. SSADM has three techniques to determine information system viability. Logical
data modeling to determine entities, data flow modeling to determine the way data
changes from one form to another and entity event modeling to document how
events within business affect the entities of the information system.

ii. By undertaking deep and thorough analysis of a system, it increases the chances
of the information being understood at the beginning stages of the project hence
ensuring complex understanding of the project.

iii. SSADM is a very structured method of creating information systems. It exercises

control over every aspect of the creation process.

iv. Well documented. Thorough roadmap/guidelines i.e. it's hard to go off-track.

12
 v. High quality system is delivered at the end of the project. vi. Suits hierarchical
organizations like government bodies.

vi. Developers have more freedom to 'get on with it' than when they have to involve
users as in Agile methods.

Disadvantages

i. Long development times as each stage must be completed thoroughly before

moving on to the next. This costs time and money so organizations have to have
large resources for SSADM projects.

ii. As it is not iterative, it is sequential; changes are not easily implemented, so it's
not flexible.

iii. Too much documentation - time consuming. Overly bureaucratic. Not everything
needs documenting. This can be a full time job in itself

System Study
This section explores the current voting system and problems associated with it.
Description of the Existing Voter Registration System
The existing system of voting is highly manual; where student have to queue the all day to vote
which is tedious and time wasting.

Problems with the Existing Voter Registration System

The problems of the existing manual system of voting include among others the following:
1. Expensive and Time consuming: The process of collecting data and entering this data
into the database takes too much time and is expensive to conduct, for example, time and
money is spent in printing data capture forms, in preparing registration stations together
with human resources, and there after advertising the days set for registration process
including sensitizing voters on the need for registration, as well as time spent on entering
this data to the database.
2. Too much paper work: The process involves too much paper work and paper storage
which is difficult as papers become bulky with the student population size.

13
 3. Errors during data entry: Errors are part of all human beings; it is very unlikely for
humans to be 100 percent efficient in data entry.
4. Loss of student registration forms: Some times, registration forms get lost after being
filled in with voters’ details, in most cases these are difficult to follow-up and therefore
many remain unregistered even though they are voting age nationals and interested in
exercising their right to vote.
5. Short time provided to view the student register: This is a very big problem since not
all people have free time during the given short period of time to check and update the
voter register.
6. Above all, a number of students end up being locked out from voting.
Hence there is great desire to reduce official procedure in the current voter registration process if
the universities electoral process is to improve.

System Implementation Technologies

The web-based varsity online voting system is being developed as an online information system
to offer users convenient access to the voter register. Several tools used during implementation
include the following:

SOFTWARE
i. MYSQL DBMS-it allows combination, extraction, manipulation and organization of
data in the voters’ database. It is platform independent and therefore can be implemented
and used across several such as Windows, Linux server and is compatible with various
hardware mainframes. It is fast in performance, stable and provides business value at a
low cost.
ii. HTML -Hypertext Markup Language-This is currently the core of the web world, it is
a language used to makeup web page. It is the glue that holds everything together.
Although HTLM was used for the implementation of the OVS, it is highly compatible
with extensible HTML (XHTML) which is designed to be a replacement of HTML made
to handle data and is also portable between different browsers and platforms with little or

14
 no alterations in code. Macromedia Dreamweaver is a prefer tool for designing HTML
pages and that is the tool used in coming up with this OVS system.
iii. PHP coding-This is for advanced user who find PHP codes easy to work with.
iv. Testing is done via WAMPSERVER.
v. Web browsers: Mozilla Firefox, Google chrome, Opera and Internet Explorer
vi. Reporting Tool i.e. through Data Report.

HARDWARE
Desktop or laptop with at least 2.0 GHz Processor speed, At least 40 GB Hard Disk Capacity and
512 RAM and Printer

References:

Anderson C. (2006). How to Rig a Democracy: A Timeline of Electronic Voting in the United
States. The Independent. Retrieved may 28, 2013 from:
http://www.indypendent.org/?p=608

Armen, C. and Morelli, R.,”E-Voting and Computer Science: Teaching About the Risks of
Electronic Voting Technology”, ACM ITiCSE, 2005.

Bellis, M. (2007). The History of Voting Machines. Retrieved april 25, 2013 from:
http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa111300b.htm

Cranor, L.F., & Cytron, R.K. (1996). Design and Implementation of a Security-Conscious
Electronic Polling System. Washington University Computer Science Technical Report
(WUCS). Retrieved june 2, 2013 from: http://www.acm.org/crossroads/ords2-
4/voting.html

C. A. Gaston, “A Better Way to Vote,” Proceedings of the 38th Annual Hawaii International
Conference on System Sciences, 2005, p.117c.
C. A. Gaston, SAVIOC Voting Systems, [Online], Available: http://www.savioc.com/, 2007.

D. L. Chaum, “Untraceable Electronic Mail, Return Addresses, and Digital Pseudonyms,”

Communications of the ACM, Vol.24, No.2, 1981, pp.84-88.
15
Electronic Voting and Counting – Development of the System. (2005). Elections ACT. Retrieved
February 11, 2013 from: http://www.elections.act.gov.au/EVACS.html

http://www.iebc.or.ke/

http://www.foruminternet.org/telechargement/documents/reco-evote-en-20030926.pdf
http://www.yazilimakademisi.org/2011/detailproject.php?id=25

APPENDIX
Interview questions and introductory letter

INTRODUCTORY LETTER

Multimedia University of Kenya

Maruti s Titus,

P.O Box 1000,

Webuye Kenya.

Date………….

Dear Respondents

RE: Questionnaire:

I am a student pursuing a bachelors’ degree of science in Information Technology at Multimedia

University of Kenya. As partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the
aforementioned degree, I am carrying out a research project which involves developing an online
voting system for the universities and colleges.

I kindly request you to spare some of your time and fill in the attached questionnaires. Your
answers will be treated with utmost confidentiality, dignity and shall be used only for the
purposes of this study. Thanks in advance.

Yours Sincerely

16
Maruti Sifuna Titus

QUESTIONNAIRE ON ELECTORAL BODY

Part (A):

1. I take part in the election as :

A commissioner student

A candidate

2. How long have you attended the voting exercise in the university/college?

Less than a year 1-3 years

3- 5 years none

3. How did you access the information about the student commission and voting in general?

Through the agents through student magazine

Through candidates through the administration

4. How did you rate the information you received?

Average excellent

Good poor

5. Give a reason for your answer in (4) above.

17
 …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
………………………………………………………………………………………………………........
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…… …………………………………………………….

Part (B):

1. What mode of voting process do you prefer or suggest?

Online voting manual voting

Combination of both

2. What degree of trust do you have on the electoral commission of the university/college?

Average Below average

Excellent

3. Please give a reason for your answer in (2) above

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Part (C)

1. What is you experience on the voting day?

...............................................................................................................................................
...............................................................................................................................................
..............................................................................................................................................

2. If it you have ever participated in voting, was the process free and fair?

Yes No

3. In your own words, what do you think can be done to ensure free, fair, just and transparent
elections in universities?

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4. Any information you would like to share with us?

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The end

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