ONLINE VOTING SYSTEM

By

OBILAKOL MUZAMIL&MUTESI ZAINAB

Reg No. 118-062082-18801/118-062082-17971
DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE

FACULTY OF SCIENCE

Supervisor

Mr. Mpiima Moud

Department of Computer Science
Faculty of Science, Islamic University in Uganda

A Research Report Submitted to the Faculty of Science for the Study Leading to a Project
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Award of
Diploma in computer science and Information Technology
of Islamic University in Uganda.

November, 2020

i
ii
 DECLARATION
I Obilakol Muzamil and Mutesi Zainab do hereby affirm and declare to the best of our
knowledge and understanding that the information presented in this project proposal is authentic
and it has never been presented or submitted to any institution of higher education for any
Academic award.

OBILAKOL MUZAMIL MUTESI ZAINAB

Reg.No: 118-062082-18801 Reg.No: 118-062082-17971
Signature……………………. Signature………………..…

Date…………………………. Date………………………..

iii
 APPROVAL

This project proposal presented by Obilakol Muzamil and Mutesi Zainab under the topic
“ONLINE VOTING, CASE STUDY: NKOMA SECONDARY SCHOOL” carried out under my
Supervision as a University Supervisor with my approval.

Mr. Mpiima Moud

Signature………………………………..

Date……………………………………..

iv
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The research work presented in this proposal has been carried out and presented at the School of
Computer Studies, Islamic University in Uganda as a part of Diploma in Computer Science and
Information Technology.

As Ludwig Wittgenstein said, Knowledge is in the end based on acknowledgement. We would

like to thank the Almighty Allah and acknowledge the support and encouragement we had from
many people while walking our feet on the path of research work. It was a great experience to
study in a highly professional environment where we had all the opportunities to excel our skills
in terms of knowledge, discipline, understanding and motivation. This study enhanced our
abilities in research works.

Furthermore, we would like to thank our lecturers of the Department of computer science for
their kindness in sharing their knowledge with us which in different ways has helped us in
coming up with this Project and being there for us when we needed them, our friends who have
always been there to support us and our respondents who gave us feedbacks on improving our
research work.

Finally, our greatest appreciation and love goes to our families and for sure this would not have
happened without their unconditional love, care and support.

Islamic University in Uganda,

November, 2020

© Muzamil Obilakol, Zainab Mutesi

v
Contents
DECLARATION.........................................................................................................................................2
APPROVAL................................................................................................................................................3
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT...........................................................................................................................4
1.1 Introduction...............................................................................................................................6
1.2 Background................................................................................................................................6
1.4 Problem Statement....................................................................................................................7
1.5 Objectives........................................................................................................................................8
1.5.1 Main Objective............................................................................................................................8
To develop an information system that will simplify the leaders election process at Nkoma
Secondary School...................................................................................................................................8
1.5.2 Specific Objectives.................................................................................................................8
1. Accessibility........................................................................................................................................9
2. Reliability...........................................................................................................................................9
3. Security...............................................................................................................................................9
5. Precision.............................................................................................................................................9
6. Increasing the level of participation.................................................................................................9
LITERATURE REVIEW..........................................................................................................................10
METHODOLOGY....................................................................................................................................13
3.3 System development methodologies.............................................................................................13
SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN..............................................................................................15
Introduction.........................................................................................................................................15
This chapter covers methods used in analyzing, designing and implementation of the system and
testing....................................................................................................................................................15
4.4 Process Modeling...........................................................................................................................16
4.5 SYSTEM DESIGN........................................................................................................................16
4.7 Data flow Diagram.........................................................................................................................20

vi
 CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Introduction

ONLINE VOTING SYSTEM is an online voting technique. It is based on the other online
services like ONLINE RESERVATION SYSTEM. The idea of introducing electronic means a
lot into the electoral process and has generated a lively debate, in which e-voting is viewed both
a chance and a danger for democracy in 2003. According to Dill (2004), for democracy to
succeed, the election results must not only be accurate, but the conduct of the elections must be
transparent and the candidates, press and the general public must be satisfied that there was no
cheating or errors in the electoral process.

The hope of e-voting enthusiasts includes the possibility of positive effects such as higher voter
participation, improved pre-electoral opinion formation, or increased cost effectiveness, whereas
the fears of sceptics are mostly tied to security concerns and the resulting possibility of large-
scaled frauds. Trust in Internet Voting As already discussed, trust in the electoral process is
essential for successful democracy.

Furthermore, there are very few analyses of the broader social implications of a technology-
driven paradigm shift in the electoral process (Oostveen & van den Besselaar, 2004)
However, trust is a complex concept, which requires that individuals make rational decisions
based on the facts to accept the integrity of Internet voting. 

In reviewing the use of Internet voting since 2000, a number of important themes emerge.

In this system students who are from Nkoma Secondary school who are registered can vote
online without going to any polling booth. There is a database which is maintained by the Admin
in which all the names of voters with complete information is stored.

1.2 Background
Electronic voting is developed for the threat free and user oriented online voting system. This
system greatly reduces human control and influence in this process, and provides an opportunity
to solve some old electoral problems. This system is designed for the students of Nkoma
Secondary school to vote for their representatives since they have been facing a lot of challenges
1
when it comes to electing there representatives. This system is done by the internet and that’s
why it is called online voting system, our main aim was to ease the manual work which was done
by students to computerized one. In this system the Administrator manages all election processes
such as Registration of students, Registration of candidates, Add election nominee, Monitor vote
count and election result publish. The result of election is very clear; the winner is the one who
expands.
1.3 Challenges
Various factors are bound to challenge the performance of the existing traditional paper ballot
system of elections in Nkoma Secondary School, and render it less relevant. Difficulties of
acquiring electoral materials by Nkoma Secondary School have made it challenging for the use
of ballot papers. Counting votes through traditional means can lead into errors and it’s tiresome.
These constraining factors negatively affect the performance of the traditional paper ballot
system and put to question, credibility of its continual adoption.
Inadequate transparent mechanism is the problems of the existing voting system in Nkoma
Secondary School in which electoral officials enjoy overdo privilege to manually collate, count
and announce election results. Hence, the method is prone to danger of human error and
deliberate manipulations.
The susceptibility nature of the method allows electoral officials with corrupt motives and their
accomplice to easily rig election at every stage of the process unnoticed. Furthermore, the system
allow for multiple voting, voting by non-eligible students; and intimidation of voters by scaring
them away from casting vote or forcing them to vote candidates against their wishes.

1.4 Problem Statement

Nkoma secondary school is a school with device ethnic students and corrugated different
political motive ranging from the individual perspective to the political positions at school.
Political malpractice has taken a new dimension in the history of all schools, that’s why we came
up with this system in order to try and fight malpractice at the school premises. As information
technology evolves over time, the need for a better, faster, more convenient and secure electronic
voting is essential requirement. The security is one of the main concerns, such as authentication,
confidentiality, integrity and non-repetition. It is not an easy task to achieve secure e-voting. The
current voting system at Nkoma secondary school involves a lot of lengthy paper work
procedures and requires students to move to the polling stations in order to cast their vote. This
2
lengthy process is tiresome and time consuming, which increases the rate of students’
absenteeism from voting. The student e-Voting system therefore provides an easier way of
voting that does not require ones’ physical presence in order to cast their vote.

1.5 Objectives

1.5.1 Main Objective

To develop an information system that will simplify the leaders election process at Nkoma
Secondary School
1.5.2 Specific Objectives
 To analyse the requirements for designing the e-vote system and generate an ERD for
the database design process

 To choose an appropriate DBMS and transform the ERD into design specifications for
the selected DBMS.

 To Implement the database and develop user interfaces using the selected application
development framework and tools

1.6 Scope of the study

It is focused on studying the existing system of voting in Nkoma secondary school and to make
sure that the students vote counts, for fairness in the elective positions.
E-voting takes a small part of the whole election process. From a technical point of view, it
focuses on:

 Calling of elections.
 Registration of students.
 Registration of candidates.
 Voting proper.
 Displaying of results

3
1.7 Significance

1. Accessibility
Voting on the Internet provides a safe and private channel that allows all students to participate
on equal terms.  This also has a positive impact on the final turnout and therefore on the
legitimacy of the election.
2. Reliability
The mathematical processes incorporated in Civility’s technology allow the participation of
independent observers who testify that election fraud and manipulation are avoided.
3. Security
When talking about a secure election we mean the overlap of security layers that are
implemented to ensure that the votes counted are in accordance with the will of the voters and
that they have been issued by the voters allowed to participate in the election. 

5. Precision
The electronic vote eliminates errors in manual count, which brings with it an accurate and
quick publication of results, with receipt of vote for each vote cast.

6. Increasing the level of participation

The Internet voting system tends to maximize user participation, by allowing them to vote
from anywhere and allowing access from different computer systems and from any device that
has an internet connection.

4. 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 voting portal.

CHAPTER TWO

4
 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0 Introduction

There are lot of practices are made to introduce the variations in electronic and online voting
systems where different techniques and methodologies are used. Some of them guarantees the
confidentiality and security to the system at some extent, still the voting information and process
need to be control and manage with advanced systems that will ensures and guarantees the
security and privacy of voter’s and voter’s information. This chapter focuses on the existing
literature that is related to E-Voting systems. The literature is sourced from; internet sources, text
books, and journals.

2.1 Basic E-voting approach/architecture

The systems that are developed to cast the vote by means of digital approach using online portals
and electronic devices use various encryption and decryption techniques to guarantee the secure
data transaction.

2.2 Categories of Voting Systems

There are mainly two categories of voting systems, that is, paper-based voting systems and
internet voting systems.
2.2.1 Paper-based Voting Systems
Ballot voting is a democratic process whereby a group of individuals express their opinion and
choice by way of casting a ballot (McCallum, 2015). The ballot process involves presenting a
voter with a list of choices to mark against their favorite choice. In the paper-based system,
voting is performed by using ballot paper and then the counting is executed manually. This is a
time-consuming process and involves manual effort (McCallum, 2015). It might also lead to the
possibility of invalid votes. All the above tedious tasks are eliminated in the above process. In
internet voting systems, the counting of votes is done by using a computer (Kobie, 2015). This
saves time and also avoids the errors that might occur during the election process at Computing
and Information Science (Nzoka et al., 2013).

2.2.2 Internet Voting Systems

5
With the emerging technology and computers, computerized processes have been invented
worldwide to improve efficiency and credibility of voting processes (Gurchetan et la., 2013).
Two distinct approaches in computerized voting processes are electronic voting and online
voting (Kremer, Mark & Ben, 2010). While online voting aims to provide a web-based interface
where voters can cast their votes and get results of the election process, electronic voting has to
do with the registration process being carried out electronically e.g. use of biometrics and coded
voter cards that can be scanned by an electronic device to authenticate the voter. Thus, an
electronic voting system may end up having human clerks tallying the votes upon termination of
the election process (Osho, 2015). Internet voting allows the casting of electronic ballots from
virtually any location around the world (Mellon, Peixoto & Sjoberg, 2017). Elections may be
organized in many different ways. Paper-based elections make use of paper ballots, while
automated elections make use of some kind of voting machines that automate the voting and/or
tabulation procedures. When the voting machines are actually implemented by computers, it is
electronic voting. Online voting systems are much more formal than online polling systems,
because they seek (or should seek) to accurately reflect the voters' preferences (Bochsler, 2010).
Mobile voting is an electronic way of choosing leaders via a web driven application (Germann &
Serdült, 2017). The advantage of mobile 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 (Kremer, Mark & Ben, 2010). The individual votes are
submitted to a database which can be queried to find out who of the aspirants for a given post has
the highest number of votes. 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 which allow people to vote far from
where they usually live, helping to reduce absenteeism rate (Schneier, 2015). Nzoka, et al (2013)
suggested online voting as a solution to curb the challenge of cheating in elections and provide a
baseline for online voting system, such a system should provide a high level of security and
establish five core requirements of an electronic voting system to address issues of privacy,
authentication, anonymity, uniqueness and coercion. According to Zissis (2011), online voting
system shows that web technologies can be harnessed to facilitate voting processes and one no
longer needs to be physically at the school setting to exercise their democratic rights as students.
The system exposes a web interface through which students login and cast their votes during the

6
election period. In Uganda, Kenya, schools and colleges have to rely on the human clerk
electoral processes (Feldman, 2015).

7
 CHAPTER THREE

METHODOLOGY
3.1 Methodology

Methodology is the systematic, theoretical analysis of the methods applied to a field of study.
The aim of this chapter is to give an introduction about the general research methodology and
waterfall methodology for development used in this project.

3.2 Research approach

There are two main research approaches used in scientific work, quantitative and qualitative. The
main difference between these two is that the aim of quantitative research is to find explanation
to a phenomenon or a situation that can be generalized to other people and places while in
qualitative research the aim is to gain deeper understanding of a phenomena or a situation.
Quantitative approach will be used to discover the issues that threaten the election process in
Nkoma secondary school especially as it relates to students/voters. We are making use of
existing data already collected by previous literature on different institute elections to analyze the
election process and derive a conclusion on how to eliminate the issues and make the voting
process to be democratic.

3.3 System development methodologies

Several system development methodologies were suitable for this project, they are briefly
discussed below.

Observations

During our study we observed that Nkoma Secondary school needed an Electronic voting system
to help them to carry out their election activities since the school is highly populated.

In our observations, we finally came to an agreement of designing this system since the school
has faced a lot of problems which cannot be controlled while using manual voting system.

We observed the problem of repeated voting by students since students could represent different
names in the process of voting and as such the only way of stopping is through embracing

8
digitalized voting since the system has got restrictions to students and cannot allow one person to
vote more than once.

Requirements analysis and specification: The first phase involves understanding what needs to
design and what is its function, purpose, etc. Here, the specifications of the input and output or
the final product are studied and marked. We shall interview the school administrators in
charge of elections at the school; collect some elections documents so as to better understand
the data needs for a comprehensive system to manage the elections. We shall design an ERD
as a final output of this phase.

System Design: The requirement specification from the first phase was studied in this phase and
system design was prepared. System Design helped us in specifying hardware and system
requirements and also helped in defining overall system architecture.

Analysis: This was carried out to determine whether the new system to be built would be
feasible in terms of technicality and economically with the available resource. We have therefore
embarked on substantial analysis and observed the current result handling system which is
manual and thus vitalized the need for an automated online result handling system which will
handle the backload:

Implementation and Testing: With inputs from system design, the system was developed and
constructed and tested.

Testing

An important part of the preparations for an online voting was the testing of the software and
hardware. Sufficient time was needed to be allocated to the testing phase; all too often delays in
the development and building phases mean that there was no longer enough time for testing.
Testing of the electronic voting system included:

 Acceptance testing;
 Performance testing;
 Usability testing;
 Security testing;

9
 CHAPTER FOUR

SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN

Introduction

This chapter covers methods used in analyzing, designing and implementation of the system and
testing.
Overview
The system must be able to support the school and carrying out of elections at the school, It must
allow students to register and vote online; it must maintain the normal prohibitions against one
person voting more than once in any single election; it must maintain the normal prohibition
against non-registered voters voting in any elections. The system must allow novel forms of
election to occur... for example, we will want to have elections as we do now (meaning all voting
in a single day but we also will want to have elections that occur over longer periods of time-
weeks, perhaps months. We will want to allow flexible voting policies.., for example, we may
want an election where once your vote is cast it is irrevocable; we may also want elections where
a voter can log on and charge his/her vote as long as it‘s prior to the end of the election. We
want the system to have an information structure to make it easy for the voters to get at least
candidate statements, party platforms, information about voting process, and the law of the land.
4.1 System study
After study of the existing voting system in Nkoma secondary school, some problems were
identified with help of the Administration, and the students. It was necessary to interview those
people who will be affected by the new system. It was found out that the existing system had no
proper mechanism designed to handle pool conflicts and resolution. Therefore, to speed the
process of processing of the vote tallying, it was necessary to develop a new system.

4.2 System Analysis

Nkoma secondary school has been processing most of its records manually, using the physical
files and records, which were also manually created, Therefore there was a great deal of clerical
effort required to prepare the ballot papers needed by the students. With the new idea to
computerize the entire voting system, it means that there would be need for efficient system for
carrying out online voting process.
10
 4.2.1 Problems with Paper Voting

The paper voting systems currently used in Nkoma secondary school are: full paper ballot
schemes. All of these schemes face numerous problems that together have deprived
millions of student voters.

4.2.1.1 User Interface Problems

User Interface problems are again common to all paper ballot schemes. In many
cases paper voting system user interfaces allow voters to make mistakes that ruin
their ballot. Over voting occurs in many cases because of stray marks or dimpling
at multiple indicators or holes corresponding to candidates. Additionally, in some
cases like the famed “butterfly ballots,

4.2.1.2 Accessibility

Paper voting systems are not accessible to many student voters with special needs.
Fonts are generally small and ballots are generally crowded with name, For example,
and these and other issues make voting difficult for vision impaired student voters.

4.3 The Electronic voting Solution

Modern electronic voting systems can solve the problems with paper systems highlighted in the
previous section. The ballots are electronic and so this removes the issues and frustrations with
paper administration. User interface and accessibility problems can be solved by flexible font
size, coloring and other details, as well as multi interfaces and special equipment to translate the
more limited signals of paralyzed students, Disabled persons report significantly preferring
electronic voting user interfaces to the paper user interfaces they used previously.

4.4 Process Modeling

Process modeling is the activity of representing both current and future processes of an enterprise
so that the current process may be analysed and improved. In this project we modeled the
processes using DFDs to show the flow of information and the sequence of events in the system.

4.5 SYSTEM DESIGN

11
System design is the process or art and Science of defining the architecture, components,
modules, interfaces and data for a system to satisfy the specified requirements.

User Requirements

4.5.1 Functional requirements:

 Registration of the voter is done by the Admin.
 The admin can change the information any time if required.
 Registration of the Voter depends upon the information filled by the user.
 Voter is given a unique PASSWORD. Voter can give vote once the correct details have
been entered that is Registration No and Password.
 In the DATABASE, information of every voter is stored.
 Database shows the information of every user.

4.5.2 Non-functional requirements:

 Secure access of confidential data (user’s details). SSL can be used.
 24 / 7 availability.
 Better component design to get better performance at peak time.
 Flexible service based architecture will be highly desirable for future extension

4.5.3 Hardware Requirement

The table below shows the hard ware requirement of the system that are necessary to
effectively and efficiently perform the online voting process.

Hardware component System Requirement Justification

Processor Intel (R) Core (TM) Duo CPU This has the NT (hyper threading)
T8100 @ 2.10GHz and its cache memory has been
increased

Processor Speed 800MHZ and above This has enough speed or the
clock rate to run the ERMS

RAM 2.00GB and above depending on This provides more speed at

the operating system which the computer can read and
write data and improves access
12
 speed.

Disk Space 80 GB and above This is enough space for the

storage of the systems data
especially by the database

4.5.4 Software requirements

 Database Design (My SQL)
 Form Design (HTML 4.0)
 Coding (PHP)
 Testing (XAMP/WAMPP SERVER).

4.6 Use case Diagram

Entity Relationship Diagram for proposed electronic voting system

Manage
Admin Registration
voting

View
Results
Voter
Reg No

Password

Voting Login

For proposed Electronic voting system

Voting Report

Administrator
Or System Output
User
13
Admin

Manage elections
A
D
M Registration
I
N
Manage results

14
 4.7 Data flow Diagram

The data flow diagram below gives the descriptions of how data flows in the system.

Start

Student Registration

Candidate Registration

Admin Login

Managing Elections

Displaying Results

Student

Login Voting Area

15
4.8 Screen shots

16
17
18
19
Conclusion

In conclusion we believe that electronic voting system offer potential for voting and election
management that is an improvement over what has thus far been available. However, the
realization of this potential requires commitment to this path by the school.

As far as the influence of new information and communication technologies on political life is
concerned, it should be remembered that application of ICT allows one of the most appreciated
advantages: to remove barriers connected with actual remoteness between the voters and those
who exercise power or represent them. That is why it is common to hear that application of new
methods for exercising democratic power is indeed a significant change of quality. One of the
most important tools of electronic democracy is e-voting which becomes increasingly more
popular in various parts of the globe and manifests itself in greater number of pilot projects and

20
initiatives aiming at introducing e-voting into the electoral procedures. We hope this proposal
will help to instill knowledge to the proposed system we are designing for the school.

REFERENCES

1 Himanshu Agarwal and G.N. Pandey “Online Voting System for India Based on
AADHAAR ID” 2013 Eleventh International Conference on ICT and Knowledge
Engineering
2 Shivendra Katiyar, Kullai Reddy Meka, Ferdous A. Barbhuiya, Sukumar Nandi “Online
Voting System Powered By Biometric Security” 2011 Second International Conference on
Emerging Applications of Information Technology.
3 Ananda D., Bui A., Gonzales J., Prempeh M. (2004), The future of e-voting, retrieved on
25/6/2014 from
http://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/csep590/04au/clearedprojects/Ananda.pdf
4 E Lombardi
21
 Lombardi E. (2002), Electronic vote and democracy, retrieved on 25/5/2014 from
http://www.electronicvote.org/INTRO/differenze_en.php
5 Date C.J (2000) An Introduction to Database System, 7tfl Edition Publisher, Delhi. .
Abraham Silberschatz, Henry F. Korth and S. Sudarshan. (2002) Database System
Concepts: 4th edition. New York 5. Sawyer Hutchinson W.(2002) Using Information
Technology,
6 Edition. Boston 6. Adams, Dale W., Douglas H. Graham and Von Pischke J. D. (1984).
Undermining Rur& Development with Cheap Credit. Westview Press, London,.

22