Mini Project

in
E-VOTING
By
SIDDHI SURESH NAIK 18IT2006
MAHISH VISHANT NAYAK 18IT1065
OM BHOTLU MUSUNURI 18IT2016

Project Guide
MRS. NILIMA DONGRE

Department of Information Technology

Dr. D. Y. Patil Group’s

Ramrao Adik Institute Of Technology

Dr. D. Y. Patil Vidyanagar, Sector 7, Nerul, Navi Mumbai

400706. (Affiliated to University of Mumbai)

2021
 Ramrao Adik Institute of Technology
(Affiliated to the University of Mumbai)
Dr. D. Y. Patil Vidyanagar,Sector 7, Nerul, Navi Mumbai 400706.

CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that, the Mini Project titled

“E-Voting”

is a bonafide work done by

SIDDHI SURESH NAIK 18IT2006

MAHISH VISHANT NAYAK 18IT1065
OM BHOTLU MUSUNURI 18IT2016

Project Guide

MRS. NILIMA DONGRE

Mini-Project Head of Department Principal

Co-ordinator
( Mrs. Sumedha (Dr. Ashish Jadhav) (Dr. Mukesh
Bhagwat ) Patil)
 Mini Project Approval

This is to certify that the Mini Project entitled ” E-Voting” is a bonafide work
done by
Siddhi Suresh Naik 18IT2006,
Mahish Vishant Nayak 18IT1065 and
Om Bhotlu Musunuri 18IT2016
under the guidance of Mrs. Nilima Dongre. This work has been
approved as a Mini Project for Third year Information Technology.

Examiners:
1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Supervisors:
1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Date :

Place :
 Declaration

I declare that this written submission represents my ideas in my

own words and where other’s ideas or words have been included, I have

adequately cited and referenced the original sources. I also declare that I

have adhered to all principles of academic honesty and integrity and have

not misrepresented or fabricated or falsified any idea/data/fact/source in

my submission. I understand that any violation of the above will be cause

for disciplinary action by the Institute and can also evoke penal action

from the sources which have thus not been properly cited or from whom

proper permission has not been taken when needed.

SIDDHI SURESH NAIK 18IT2006

MAHISH VISHANT NAYAK 18IT1065
OM BHOTLU MUSUNURI 18IT2016

Date :

4
CONTENTS

Abstract

List of Figures

List of Tables

1 Introduction

2 Literature Survey

3 Problem Statement

4 Objective

5 Proposed Framework

6 Implementation Environment

7 Conclusion

5
Abstract
This project is an attempt to build a secure electronic voting
system that would provide fairness and privacy of the current
voting systems while also offering transparency, accessibility
and flexibility of being a completely electronic system.
We propose an online voting protocol and will be
implemented on a blockchain based distributed ledger which is
capable of fighting attacks of integrity and non-repudiation
while ensuring the authenticity of the votes and the privacy of
the voters as promised.

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Chapter 1
Introduction

India is the largest democracy in the world and voting in India

has always been a controversial topic. whether with the initial
“Balloting System”, implemented in the 1951−52 General
Elections or the recent “Electronic Voting Machines”,
implemented extensively since 1998.[1]

In the balloting system, a voter casts their vote on a pre-printed

ballot paper, in the presence of an appointed voting official
and the cumulative votes are captured in a physical box and
transported to a centralized vote counting location. The issues
with this system as evident enough were mitigated by replacing
them with an electronic voting system where votes are captured
on an electronic balloting unit and transported across to a
centralized location for calculation using the control unit. Votes
cast on an EVM are assumed to be tamperproof to a great
extent. However, the other obvious issues with this system were
the reliance on an authority for the purpose of monitoring the
voting process as well as allegations of influence by political
parties to support their cause. Apart from this, other issues
concerning the current voting system in India include, amongst
the least, lack of transparency, fake voter IDs, prone to political
manipulation in remote locations, as well as delay in the result
declaration. All these identified issues can be well resolved by
replacing any current voting option with a blockchain based
electronic-voting system which operates on a user level
capturing the votes on a distributed interface (web/mobile).

Blockchain is a distributed, immutable, incontrovertible,

public ledger. This new technology has three main features:

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(i) Immutability: Any proposed “new block” to the ledger
must reference the previous version of the ledger.
This creates an immutable chain, which is where the blockchain
gets its name from, and prevents tampering with the integrity
of the previous entries.
(ii) Verifiability: The ledger is decentralized, replicated and
distributed over multiple locations. This ensures high
availability (by eliminating a single point of failure) and
provides third-party verifiability as all nodes maintain the
consensus version of the ledger.
(iii) Distributed Consensus: A distributed consensus protocol
to determine who can append the next new transaction to
the ledger. A majority of the network nodes must reach
a consensus before any new proposed block of entries
becomes a permanent part of the ledger.

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Chapter 2
Literature Survey

• Earlier noted versions of an electronic system of voting

have been attributed to David Chaum, who created a
system with a public key cryptography for the purpose
of vote casting, while keeping the voters anonymous,
with the use of the Blind Signature Theorem. [2] Post
which a lot of research has been conducted with other
methods of electronic voting systems.[3−6]
• Kaspersky Labs has conducted their own case-study
with a blockchain secured voting system targeting
proof-of-work to replace the issue of multiple voting,
which is similar to “double spending” in Bitcoin.[7] With
the help of unique, anonymous Bitcoin addresses, this
system ensures the voting is completely transparent,
while being authenticated using the U.S. based social
security number. They have also created a proof-of-
concept on a shared instance which can be accessible
as a web application [7].
• Other notable electronic/digital voting systems include
the Estonian internet voting system [8].The system was
setup using the Estonian national identification card,
which was used to generate a SHA1/SHA2 signature, as
a private key.

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Current Voting Methods

EVMs
Electronic voting (also known as e-voting) is a term
encompassing several different types of voting, embracing
both electronic means of casting a vote and electronic means
of counting votes. Electronic voting technology can include
punch cards, optical scan voting systems and specialized
voting kiosks
(including self-contained Direct-recording electronic (DRE)
voting systems).
Postal Ballot
Postal voting in India is done only through the Electronically
Transmitted Postal Ballot Papers (ETPB) system of Election
Commission of India, where ballot papers are distributed to the
registered eligible voters and they return the votes by post.[9]

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Solutions needed currently

• The need to record information and to have the results

available quickly. (Timeliness);
• The need to have a system that is accessible to all and easy to
use. (Accessibility);
• The need to ensure secrecy of what takes place. (Secrecy)
• The need for voting to be undertaken seriously, after due
deliberation. (Deliberation);
• The ability to ensure that each individual’s vote is recorded
and counted accurately. (Accuracy);
• The need to guard against manipulation and interference
with information once recorded. (Security)
• The need to ensure that individuals cannot be impersonated.
(Authentication);
• The need to verify what has taken place through the use of
traceable information Trails. (Verifiability).

WHAT IS BLOCKCHAIN?
A blockchain is a distributed leger of data gathered through
a system that sits over the web. It is the means by which this
data is recorded that gives blockchain its weighty potential.
Blockchain, by itself, isn't an organization, nor is it an
application, yet rather a completely different approach for
archiving information on the web by means of a distributed
ledger. It can be utilized to create applications, for example,
for the purpose of authentication, identification, social
networks, messaging, financials management, security, and
on the basic level for other ledger-based implementations

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Comparison of different Blockchain Techniques

Ethereum (Public Blockchain)

The main concern in E-Voting is how to protect the user’s
identity yet preserve transparency and integrity of data. To
solve this problem Ethereum provides the different hash values
to users in the network through which it is almost impossible
to identify the individual and the transactions done in the
Ethereum network is visible to everyone in the network and
can be validated it makes it transparent to all the nodes in the
network and to maintain the integrity of the data the data is
not stored in a particular location but it is spread across the
network which acts as a distributed database which makes the
data immutable and very difficult to manipulate, By this
process the integrity of the data is maintained. It provides a
peer-to-peer communication where all the applications run on
Ethereum network. For the process of voting each voter must
be provided a Ethereum wallet which will consist of limited
amount of ether which will be used to vote for the candidate
and the votes will be recorded in the blockchain using the
smart contract which will validate and verify the voters and
vote.[10]
However, there is a problem, in that fairness cannot be
guaranteed because all researches transmit transactions in
plain text. In addition, the above researches have the possibility
of double voting due to the use of public blockchain. When
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such problems arise, it is suitable for electronic voting private
blockchain to be utilized. A private blockchain can be used to
restrict participants and prevent the possibility of data
tampering. In addition, the branch generated in the public
blockchain does not occur in the PBFT consensus algorithm,
thereby preventing double voting.
Private Blockchain
For this reason, this proposed method proposes an electronic
voting system that operates in private blockchain. We propose
an electronic voting system that provides privacy and fairness
through data encryption by preventing the double voting by
using PBFT, which is the algorithm of consensus of private
blockchain.
Public blockchains while being transparent and resistant to
tampering are slow and expensive whereas, private blockchains
are somewhat centralised but can deliver much higher
throughput and speeds. As a logical step, hybrid blockchains
combine the benefits of both of the blockchains while trying to
limit the disadvantages. Therefore, with hybrid blockchains, we
can employ a public blockchain to make the ledger accessible
to every single person in the world, with a private blockchain
running in the background that can control access to the
modifications in the ledger.[11]
Hybrid Blockchain
However, the classical consensus method of blockchain, that is,
Proof-of-Work, as implemented in Bitcoin, has a significant
impact on energy consumption and compromises the
scalability, efficiency, and latency of the system. In this paper,
we propose a hybrid consensus model (PSC-Bchain) composed
of Proof of Credibility and Proof of Stake that work mutually to
address the aforementioned problems to secure e-voting
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systems. Smart contracts are used to provide a trustworthy
public bulletin board and a secure computing environment to
ensure the accuracy of the ballot outcome. We combine a
sharding mechanism with the PSC-Bchain hybrid approach to
emphasize security, thus enhancing the scalability and
performance of the blockchain-based e-voting system.[12]

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Chapter 3
Problem Statement

Voting in India comes with its own problems. During the last
half-a-century, there have been thirteen general elections to
Lok Sabha and a much larger number to various State
Legislative Assemblies. We can take legitimate pride in that
these have been successful and generally acknowledged to be
free and fair. But, the experience has also brought to fore many
distortions, some very serious, generating a deep concern in
many quarters. There are constant references to the unhealthy
role of money power, muscle power and mafia power and to
criminalization, corruption, communalism and casteism.
• Increasing cost of elections leading to unethical, illegal
and even mafia provided electoral funding, corruption,
criminalization and black money generation in various
forms.
• Inaccurate and flawed electoral rolls and voter identity
leading to rigging and denial of voting rights to a large
number of citizens.
• Booth capturing and fraudulent voting by rigging and
impersonation.
• Engineered mistakes in counting of votes
• The cost per EVM (One Control Unit, one Balloting Unit
and one battery) was Rs.5, 500/- at the time the machines
were purchased in 1989-90. Even though the initial
investment is somewhat heavy, this is more than
neutralized by the saving in the matter of printing of
ballot papers in laths, their transportation, storage etc.
EVMs used in 2004 elections are checked and all
machines are in working condition according to election

15
 commission officers in MP. These machines are ready to
use for coming state assembly elections.
• The substantial reduction in the counting staff and the
remuneration paid to them. (Saving manpower required
for conducting said elections)
• The main important factor is – the saving of trees.
(Environmental factor) Supporters say it's also good for
the environment in a country trying to save its vanishing
forests. More than 8,000 tons of paper, made from
approximately 16 million trees, are used to print ballots
for past elections. (Saving trees and essentially the
environment while being at the beginning of a global
warming crisis)

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Chapter 4
Objective

We discuss the concepts of blockchain and how it can be

implemented as an efficient solution towards public voting
while aiming to destroy the disadvantages of the current
voting system in India, at the same time providing a better,
more reliable, secure and transparent means of public
governance.
E-Voting seems to rise above all these problems by being
easier, cheaper to implement and maintain, easily accessible
from remote location as the at the touch of a button on your
computer and no risk of tampering with the voters.
While E-Voting was explored before, the major problem that
hindered the use of it was Security. This too can be solved if a
secured system was used to protect the voter’s data.
We therefore would be implementing this project with
blockchain techniques being its Base.
Using Blockchain Every record will be stored in the Ledger
leading to greater transparency, security, decrease in voter
fraud. Confidentiality, verification and secrecy of the voters can
be achieved.

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Chapter 5
Proposed Framework

1. Website User Interface

We create an easy to follow and understand website to be
the frontend UI to our project. It would contain:
i. A Registration page for new users.
The user would register using biometric scanning for
identification and this data would be saved.
ii. A login page for registered users.
All registered users can login by getting
authenticated using the same biometric data
submitted by them during registration.
iii. The main page
This would contain the voting area and be user
friendly based on region/language.
iv. Database
The database would hold the data of the registered
users.

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2. Blockchain
We decided to use a Private Blockchain technique
because it best suits our needs.
Due to the specific requirements of our use case and in
order to get insights into the full cycle of blockchain
development and implementation, we decided to build
our own custom blockchain tailored to the particular
requirements of privacy as well as transparency.

3. Authentication and Verification

We would register the users and verify them using
biometric details for e.g. fingerprints, iris, tongue print,
voice recognition and face recognition etc.

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Chapter 6
Implementation Environment

Technologies (Tech-Stack):

Front end programming languages like HTML, CSS, PHP,

JavaScript, jQuery, Ajax and Back end programming
languages like Python, Node.js and external database like
MySQL, MongoDB will be used to create the entire Admin
and User Interface. We will use Web Servers, FTP Servers and
Mail Servers to host the website and send notifications.

Blockchain:

We would be using Python to create our own Blockchain

adding a Consensus method to protect against hackers.
Our blockchain will be tailored to fit our needs of knowing
the voter and its status (Transparency) to prevent misuse
while maintaining the vote confidential (Privacy).
Our Framework for the entire blockchain will revolve around
the traditional method of having a consensus mechanism
that would maintain anonymity as well as transparency.

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 Chapter 7
Conclusion

We discuss the concepts of blockchain and how it can be

implemented as an efficient solution towards public voting
while aiming to destroy the disadvantages of the current
voting system in India, at the same time providing a better,
more reliable, secure and transparent means of public
governance.
We want to create a project that would normalize and motivate
people to vote by being a trustable, flexible and accessible
environment while it being easier, cheaper and easily
maintainable reducing the man power, money and time
needed behind the entire election process.
We also imagine the project being used at a national level by
adding a few more features for a more secure interaction and
making it more and more accessible by adhering the need to
different languages by the regional population in every corner
of the country.

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Bibliography

1. Election Commission of India, https://eci.gov.in/.

2. DL Chaum (1981), “Untraceable Electronic Mail, Return
Addresses, and Digital Pseudonyms”, Communication of
the ACM, Volume 24, Issue 2.
3. T ElGamal (1985), “A public Key Cryptosystem and a
Signature Scheme Based on Discrete Logarithms”, IEEE
Trans. Info. Theory, Volume 31
4. S Ibrahim, M Kamat, M Salleh, SR A, Aziz (14−15 January,
2003), “Secure EVoting with Blind Signature”, Proceeding
of the 4th National Conference of Communication
Technology, Johor, Malaysia.
5. J Jan, Y Chen, Y Lin (16−19 October, 2001), “The Design of
Protocol for e- Voting on the Internet”, Proceedings IEEE
35th Annual 2001 International Carnahan Conference on
Security Technology, London, England.
6. DL Dill, AD Rubin (2004), “E-Voting Security”, Security and
Privacy Magazine, Volume 2, Issue 1.
7. Kaspersky, Eugene (2016), “Cyber Security Case Study
Competition-Kaspersky”, The Economist, Volume 15,
Accessed on December 14. 2016.
http://www.economist.com/sites/default/files/drexel.pdf.
8. D Springall, T Finkenauer, Z Durumeric, J Kitcat, H Hursti,
M MacAlpine, JA Halderman (2014), “Security Analysis of
the Estonian Internet Voting System”, Proceedings of the
2014 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and
Communications Security.
9. A Study on Electronic Voting System Using Private
Blockchain Chang-Hyun Roh* and Im-Yeong Lee**
10. Secure large-scale E-voting system based on blockchain
contract using a hybrid consensus model
combined with sharding Yousif Abuidris, Rajesh Kumar1,
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 Ting Yang1, Joseph Onginjo
11. Blockchain E-Voting Done Right: Privacy and
Transparency with Public Blockchain Kristian Kost’al,
Rastislav Bencel, Michal Ries, Ivan Kotuliak
12. Implementation of Smart Contracts Ethereum Blockchain
in Web-Based Electronic Voting (e-voting) And
another one

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