E-VOTING SYSTEM USING BLOCKCHAIN

BY

SOLOMON Yakubu

CSC/15U/3315

A PROPOSAL PROJECT SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER

SCIENCE, MODIBBO ADAMA UNIVERSITY YOLA, IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE AWARD OF BACHELOR OF TECHNOLOGY (B.
TECH) DEGREE IN COMPUTER SCIENCE.

JULY, 2023

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 DEDICATION

I dedicate this report to God Almighty who is my source of strength, and has remained my
sustenance and my keeper, and to my lovely family most especial Mr. Yakubu Tari Tumba,
my Mother Rebecca Yakubu, My sister Maryam Ayuba Ali, Naha Yakubu and my wife Mrs
Margret Solomon for their prayers, love, unwavering support and encouragement.

APPROVAL PAGE

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I appreciate God Almighty for His unfailing love, mercies and sufficient grace to me. God
has been so faithful to me, He has been my sustenance throughout the period of this Industrial

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attachment, and glory be to His Holy name. I appreciate all those who have tutored me both
directly and indirectly, and also support me in many different ways. I am grateful for your
love.

My profound gratitude goes to all the members of various units that constitute the
Information Communication Technology (ICT) Adamawa Television Corporation Yola
Bajabure Nigeria (ATV), for the vast knowledge impacted.

With a grateful heart I want to specially thank this great set of people Miss
Blessing Lawrence Ada, Mr.Tartiyus W Kumdisi (Director Programmes), Engr. Boiniface
Abalis (Director Planning, Research & Statistic) who has been my direct supervisor for his
understanding and tolerance. , they support me and have been great instrumental in the
activities of my IT in ATV.

Furthermore, I recognize the efforts of Mr. Henry Yuwardama Idama (Head of ICT) he has
been very supportive to me, God bless him richly.

I also acknowledge and salute the team spirit exhibited by my colleagues here, some are my
course mates from MAUTECH, and coincidentally we got industrial placement in the same
place. To all those too numerous to mention and have been very supportive, I say thank you
all.

ABSTRACT

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The E-Voting System Using Blockchain is a decentralized electronic voting solution that

leverages the power of blockchain technology to enhance the security, transparency, and

integrity of the voting process. Traditional voting systems often face challenges such as

fraud, tampering, and lack of transparency. This project aims to address these issues by

implementing a blockchain-based e-voting system. The proposed system utilizes a distributed

ledger technology, specifically a blockchain, to store and verify voting data. Each vote is

recorded as a transaction on the blockchain, ensuring immutability and transparency. The

blockchain's decentralized nature eliminates the need for a central authority, thereby

enhancing trust and reducing the risk of manipulation.

Table of Contents
DEDICATION...........................................................................................................................2

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.........................................................................................................2
CHAPTER ONE........................................................................................................................5
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................5
1.1 Background of the Study......................................................................................................5
Figure 1.1 The blockchain structure...........................................................................................8
1.2 Problem Statement...............................................................................................................9
1.3 Objectives of the Study........................................................................................................9
1.4 Scope of the Study.............................................................................................................10
CHAPTER TWO.....................................................................................................................11
LITERATURE REVIEW.........................................................................................................11
2.0 Introduction...................................................................................................................11
2.1 Theoretical Literature Review............................................................................................12
2.2 Richards and Drake’s characteristics theory:.....................................................................13
2.3 Empirical Literature Review..............................................................................................14
2.3.1 Why Use E-Voting:...................................................................................................16
2.3.2 E-Voting Experiences Around The World................................................................17
2.3.3 Student’s Council Election Cases..............................................................................18
2.3.4 E-voting using Blockchain........................................................................................19
CHAPTER THREE..................................................................................................................21
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.............................................................................................21
3.1 Rapid Application Development...................................................................................21
3.1.1 Software Prototyping.................................................................................................21
3.2 System Design....................................................................................................................21
3.3 Proposed System Design...............................................................................................22
3.5 The Home Page.............................................................................................................24
3.6 The Login/Sign-Up Page...............................................................................................25
3.8 The Aspirants’ Information Page..................................................................................25
3.9 Voting Page...................................................................................................................26
REFERENCES.........................................................................................................................27

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 CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Electoral integrity is essential not just for democratic nations but also for state voter’s trust
and liability. Political voting methods are crucial in this respect. From a government
standpoint, electronic voting technologies can boost voter participation and confidence and
rekindle interest in the voting system. As an effective means of making democratic decisions,
elections have long been a social concern. As the number of votes cast in real life increases,
citizens are becoming more aware of the significance of the electoral system, (Liu Y., Wang
Q and Shahzad B 2019). The voting system is the method through which judges judge who
will represent in political and corporate governance.

Democracy is a system of voters to elect representatives by voting (Racsko P, and Yaga D

2019). The efficacy of such a procedure is determined mainly by the level of faith that people
have in the election process. The creation of legislative institutions to represent the desire of
the people is a well-known tendency. Such political bodies differ from student unions to
constituencies.

Over the years, the vote has become the primary resource to express the will of the citizens
by selecting from the choices they made et al. (Shahzad B 2019). The traditional or paper-
based polling method served to increase people’s confidence in the selection by majority
voting. It has helped make the democratic process and the electoral system worthwhile for
electing constituencies and governments more democratized.

There are 167 nations with democracy in 2018, out of approximately 200, which are either
wholly flawed or hybrid (Cullen R and Economist EIU Democratic Index 2018). The secret
voting model has been used to enhance trust in democratic systems since the beginning of the
voting system.

It is essential to ensure that assurance in voting does not diminish. A recent study revealed
that the traditional voting process was not wholly hygienic, posing several questions,
including fairness, equality, and people’s will, was not adequately (Schinckus C, 2020)
quantified and understood in the form of government (Shahzad B et al, 2019; Gao S et al
2019).

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Engineers across the globe have created new voting techniques that offer some anti-
corruption protection while still ensuring that the voting process should be correct.
Technology introduced the new electronic voting techniques and methods et al, (Kim T.
2020), which are essential and have posed significant challenges to the democratic system.
Electronic voting increases election reliability when compared to manual polling. In contrast
to the conventional voting method, it has enhanced both the efficiency and the integrity of the
process (Hang L, and Kim D.-H 2019).

Because of its flexibility, simplicity of use, and cheap cost compared to general elections,
electronic voting is widely utilized in various decisions (Chang V 2020).

Despite this, existing electronic voting methods run the danger of over-authority and
manipulated details, limiting fundamental fairness, privacy, secrecy, anonymity, and
transparency in the voting process. Most procedures are now centralized, licensed by the
critical authority, controlled, measured, and monitored in an electronic voting system, which
is a problem for a transparent voting process in and of itself.

On the other hand, the electronic voting protocols have a single controller that oversees the
whole voting process et al, (Wang B 2020). This technique leads to erroneous selections due
to the central authority’s dishonesty (election commission), which is difficult to rectify using
existing methods. The decentralized network may be used as a modern electronic voting
technique to circumvent the central authority. Blockchain technology offers a decentralized
node for online voting or electronic voting. Recently distributed ledger technologies such
blockchain were used to produce electronic voting systems mainly because of their end-to-
end verification advantages et al, (Ometov A 2020).

Blockchain is an appealing alternative to conventional electronic voting systems with

features such as decentralization, non-repudiation, and security protection. It is used to hold
both boardroom and public voting, et al, (Goa S 2020).

A blockchain, initially a chain of blocks, is a growing list of blocks combined with

cryptographic connections. Each block contains a hash, timestamp, and transaction data from
the previous block. The blockchain was created to be data-resistant. Voting is a new phase of
blockchain technology; in this area, the researchers are trying to leverage benefits such as
transparency, secrecy, and non-repudiation that are essential for voting applications et al,
(Hakak S., 2020). With the usage of blockchain for electronic voting applications, efforts

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such as utilizing blockchain technology to secure and rectify elections have recently received
much attention et al, (Çabuk U.C., 2020).

The first things that come to mind about the blockchain are cryptocurrencies and smart
contracts because of the well-known initiatives in Bitcoin and Ethereum. Bitcoin was the first
crypto-currency solution that used a blockchain data structure. Ethereum introduced smart
contracts that leverage the power of blockchain immutability and distributed consensus while
offering a crypto-currency solution comparable to Bitcoin.

The concept of smart contracts was introduced much earlier by Nick Szabo in the 1990s and
is described as “a set of promises, specified in digital form, including protocols within which
the parties perform on these promises” (Szabo N, 1997). In Ethereum, a smart contract is a
piece of code deployed to the network so that everyone has access to it. The result of
executing this code is verified by a consensus mechanism and by every member of the
network as a whole (Wood G 2014).

Today, we call a blockchain a set of technologies combining the blockchain data structure
itself, distributed consensus algorithm, public key cryptography, and smart contracts et al,
(Tan W 2021). Below we describe these technologies in more detail.

Blockchain creates a series of blocks replicated on a peer-to-peer network. Any block in

blockchain has a cryptographic hash and timestamp added to the previous block, as shown
in Figure 1. A block contains the Merkle tree block header and several transactions
(Nakamoto S 2020). It is a secure networking method that combines computer science and
mathematics to hide data and information from others that is called cryptography. It allows
the data to be transmitted securely across the insecure network, in encrypted and decrypted
forms (Garg K et al, 2019; and Kamil S 2018).

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Figure 1.1 The blockchain structure.

As was already mentioned, the blockchain itself is the name for the data structure. All the
written data are divided into blocks, and each block contains a hash of all the data from the
previous block as part of its data et al. (Jaffal R, 2021). The aim of using such a data structure
is to achieve provable immutability. If a piece of data is changed, the block’s hash containing
this piece needs to be recalculated, and the hashes of all subsequent blocks also need to be
recalculated et al, (Nofer M. 2017). It means only the hash of the latest block has to be used
to guarantee that all the data remains unchanged. In blockchain solutions, data stored in
blocks are formed from all the validated transactions during their creation, which means no
one can insert, delete or alter transactions in an already validated block without it being
noticed et al, (Zhang L., 2021). The initial zero-block, called the “genesis block,” usually
contains some network settings, for example, the initial set of validators (those who issue
blocks).

Blockchain solutions are developed to be used in a distributed environment. It is assumed that

nodes contain identical data and form a peer-to-peer network without a central authority. A
consensus algorithm is used to reach an agreement on blockchain data that is fault-tolerant in
the presence of malicious actors. Such consensus is called Byzantine fault tolerance, named
after the Byzantine Generals’ Problem, et al., (Castro M 2020). Blockchain solutions use
different Byzantine fault tolerance (BFT) consensus algorithms: Those that are intended to be
used in fully decentralized self-organizing networks, such as cryptocurrency platforms, use
algorithms such as proof-of-work or proof-of-stake, where validators are chosen by an
algorithm so that it is economically profitable for them to act honestly (Laurie B 2020). When

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the network does not need to be self-organized, validators can be chosen at the network setup
stage et al, (Prashar D 2020). The point is that all validators execute all incoming transactions
and agree on achieving results so that more than two-thirds of honest validators need to
decide on the outcome.

Public key cryptography is used mainly for two purposes: Firstly, all validators own their
keypairs used to sign consensus messages, and, secondly, all incoming transactions (requests
to modify blockchain data) have to be signed to determine the requester. Anonymity in a
blockchain context relates to the fact that anyone wanting to use cryptocurrencies just needs
to generate a random keypair and use it to control a wallet linked to a public key (Froomkin
A.M, 2020). The blockchain solution guarantees that only the keypair owner can manage the
funds in the wallet, and this property is verifiable (Pawlak M., Poniszewska-Marańda A 2021
and Jalal I et al, 2020). As for online voting, ballots need to be accepted anonymously but
only from eligible voters, so a blockchain by itself definitely cannot solve the issue of voter
privacy.

Smart contracts breathed new life into blockchain solutions. They stimulated the application
of blockchain technology in efforts to improve numerous spheres. A smart contract itself is
nothing more than a piece of logic written in code. Still, it can act as an unconditionally
trusted third party in conjunction with the immutability provided by a blockchain data
structure and distributed consensus et al, (Mohanta B.K. 2019). Once written, it cannot be
altered, and all the network participants verify all steps. The great thing about smart contracts
is that anybody who can set up a blockchain node can verify its outcome.

1.2 Problem Statement

The manual voting systems are faced with challenges such as lack of transparency,
tampering. These issues undermine the credibility and acceptance of voting systems.
Therefore, there is a need to explore novel approaches that address these challenges and
provide a secure and transparent e-voting solution.

1.3 Objectives of the Study

The primary objective of this study is to develop an e-voting system using blockchain
technology that is secure, transparent, and tamper-proof. The specific objectives of the study
are:

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 i. To explore the benefits and challenges of e-voting systems and Ethereum blockchain
technology
ii. To design and develop an e-voting system using Ethereum blockchain technology
iii. To evaluate the performance and security of the developed e-voting system

1.4 Scope of the Study

This project will focus on developing an e-voting system using the Ethereum blockchain. The
scope includes:

i. Designing the architecture of the e-voting system, including smart contracts and user
interfaces.
ii. Implementing the smart contracts on the Ethereum network.
iii. Developing a user-friendly interface for voters to participate in the e-voting process.
iv. Ensuring the security and privacy of the e-voting system by implementing
cryptographic protocols and authentication mechanisms.
v. Conducting a comprehensive evaluation of the system's functionality, security, and
usability.
vi. Comparing the proposed e-voting system with traditional voting systems and other e-
voting solutions.

1.5 Significance of the Study

This project aims to contribute to the field of e-voting by leveraging blockchain technology,
specifically the Ethereum blockchain, to address the security and transparency challenges
faced by traditional voting systems. The outcomes of this study will provide insights into the
potential of blockchain-based e-voting systems and their applicability in real-world scenarios.
The findings can guide policymakers, election officials, and technologists in understanding
the benefits and limitations of such systems, ultimately leading to the advancement of secure
and trustworthy e-voting solutions.

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 CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.0 Introduction

A voting system or electoral system is a method by which voters make a choice

between options, often in an election or on a policy referendum. A voting system enforces
rules to ensure valid voting, and how votes are counted and aggregated to yield a final result.
Common voting systems are majority rule, proportional representation or plurality voting
with a number of variations and methods such as first-past-the-post or preferential voting.
The study of formally defined voting systems is called social choice theory or voting theory,
a subfield of political science, economics, or mathematics.
With the proportional representation system several members of parliament are to be elected
per constituency. Basically every political party presents a list of candidates and voters can
select a list and vote for a political party. Parties are assigned parliamentary seats
proportionally to the number of votes they get.
According to Douglas (2003), the purpose of Electronic voting technology is to provide a
plain, simple and secret voting process, speed up the counting of ballots, reduce the cost of
paying staff to count votes manually and can provide improved accessibility for disabled
voters. However, there has been contention, especially in the United States, that electronic
voting could facilitate electoral fraud and may not be fully auditable. In addition, electronic
voting has been criticized as unnecessary and expensive to introduce.
Several countries have cancelled e-voting systems or decided against a large-scale rollout,
notably the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom. Yet electronic voting system has
been practicing widely for last two decades. But historically it is seen that it has been using
more than last 150 years. The first concept of electronic voting ideas comes from de Brettes.
He develops an electronic decision-making telegraph in 1849.
According to Thomas A. (2008), electronic vote recorder was invented by Thomas Edison in
1869. In this system, a signal to a central recorder, listed the names of the members in two
columns of metal type headed ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’ [Vote Recorder, 2008], and was introduced
first automated voting system in 1886.

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2.1 Theoretical Literature Review

Several theories and literatures abound to serve as platform for the explanation of the
nature, processes, manifestations and importance of voting system. Nurudeen A.
Iromini’s theory developed in 1889 dwells on the “categories of voting system” he
stated that Voting system can be generally categorized into two major types namely:
(a) Traditional Voting System (TVS) and (b) Electronic Voting System (EVS). The
two basic voting systems without electronic means are: (i) paper ballot method and
(ii) mechanical lever machine method.
The paper ballot system, which is still very common in sub- Sahara Africa, Nigeria
not an exemption usually, employs uniform ballots of various stock weights on which
the names of all candidates and issues are printed. Voter record their choices, in
private by marking or thumb print the boxes next to the candidate or issue choice they
select and drop the voted ballot in a sealed ballot box. The paper ballot system was
first adopted in the Australian state of Victoria in 1856 and in the remaining
Australian states over the next several years, where it became known as the
“Australian ballot.” New York became the first American state to adopt the paper
ballot for state wide elections in 1889. As of 1996, paper Ballots were still used by
1.7% of the registered voters in the United States. They are used primarily as
alternative voting system in small communities and rural areas. In the mechanical
lever voting system, the name of each candidate or ballot issue choice is assigned a
particular lever in a rectangular array of levers on the front of the machine. A set of
printed strips visible to the voters identifies the lever assignment for each candidate
issue choice. The levers are horizontal in their unvoted position. And when a voter
enters the booth and closes the curtain by means of a lever, the machine unlocks for
voting. The titles of all elective offices are listed on the face of the machine along
with the party candidates running for each office. Above each name is a lever which,
when depressed, indicates a vote for that candidate.
When the voter pulls the curtain open to leave, the machine automatically registers the
vote and is cleared for use by the next person. Only one candidate for each office is
allowed to be selected during this process. If all mechanical connect ions are fully
operational during the voting period and the counters are initially set to zero. The
position of each counter at the close of the polls indicates the number of votes cast on

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 the lever that drives it. Interlocks in the machine prevent the voter from voting for
more choices than permitted.
In electronic voting system, voter records their secure and secret ballot electronically
using modern technological device such as computer and mobile devices where the
system can compile and tabulate results automatically. Electronic Voting System
(EVS) can be described as a voting system by which election data are recorded,
stored, and processed electronically, primarily as digital information. Electronic
voting (also known as e-voting) encompasses both electronic means of casting a vote
and counting the votes. Theoretical study about existing electronic voting techniques
was given as well as requirements and security issues of modern electronic voting
systems. He also presented modern voting solutions including security functionalities
provided by the system, the cryptographic techniques used and some threats and
attacks to the systems.
2.2 Richards and Drake’s characteristics theory:

According to Richard S. and Drake P.M. (1985), voting systems must be transparent
and comprehensible enough that voters and candidates can readily accept the results
of an election. For a voting system to be considered transparent and comprehensible,
some important criteria must be met: First, the anonymity of voter’s ballot must be
preserved in order to ensure that the voter is safe when voting against a candidate and
also to guarantee that voters have no evidence that proves which particular candidates
received their vote. It is believed that the existence of such evidence could allow votes
to be bought. Secondly, the voting system must be tamper-proof in order to prevent a
wide range of attacks, including ballot stuffing by voters and incorrect tallying by
insiders (poll officials). Thirdly, it should be user-friendly. This means that it should
be easily comprehensible and usable by the entire voting populace. Electronic voting
(e-voting) is one of the pillars of the democracy, which refers to the use of computers
or computerized voting equipments to cast and tabulate ballots in an elect ion in a
trustable manner.
Several works have been done in the area of electronic voting system for the
monitoring of election process on our campuses. The US has been experimenting with
different forms of electronic voting system for a number of years. Currently,
numerous voting technologies have been implemented across the country. In the year
2004 presidential election, around 40 million votes were cast electronically in polling

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 sites. Voting over the internet on the other hand is met with great skepticism.
Fingerprints identification was integrated into electronic voting machine using
microcontroller. The use of fingerprint to identify voters not only guarantees the
voters’ anonymity but also ensures a one-man one-vote system. In recent years,
electronic voting systems have been deployed in all US elections. Despite the fact that
cryptographic integrity checks are used in most systems, several reports have
documented serious security vulnerabilities of electronic voting terminals. An
overview of the typical security and election vulnerabilities found, in most, if not all,
electronic elect ion systems were also presented.
Also, in the paper presented by Richards S. and Drake P.M., he analyzed the security
considerations for a remote internet voting system based on the system architecture of
remote internet voting. The feasibility of successful carrying out of remote electronic
voting over the existing internet infrastructure that conforms to the requirements of a
public election process was also examined using Delov-Yao Threat Analysis Model.
Multifactor authentication and cryptographic hash function methods was used to
improve the authentication and integrity of e-voting system.
In Belgium, a new prototype i.e. an improved paper-based voting system, developed
by a consortium led by Smartmatic was employed. According to paper presented in
Taita Taveta University College, he described the process undertaken to achieve
development and deployment of a web-based system to promote free and fair
democratic electioneering process. The system was developed using the incremental
prototyping due to the adaptive nature of web-based applications and the system
proved that a computerized solution is possible with elimination of human related
faults that are a commonplace in employment of human clerks to manage the election
process.

2.3 Empirical Literature Review

This category of voting “Electronic voting” is potentially broad, referring to several

distinct possible stages of electronic usage during the course of an election. Electronic
voting is a voting process where electronic machines are used to facilitate vote
without using paper ballots.
In defining the word online voting (E-voting), this study takes a look at various
literature concepts on e-voting.

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According to Cetinkaya and Cetinkaya (2007), e-voting systems include three actors:
voter, registration authorities and tallying authorities. Voters have the right for voting,
and registration authorities register eligible voters before the “election day”. These
authorities ensure that only registered voters can vote and they vote only once on the
election’s day and tallying authorities collect the cast votes and tally the results of the
election. Tallying authorities may be counter, collector and /or tallies.
Kahani, (2005) the literature presents four categories of e-voting, depending on the
level of security, privacy, and trust that they maintain; these categories are e-
commerce, trust authority, individually verifiable and universally verifiable. In the
first type there is no security except possibly on the communication channels. Ballot
box stuffing is tolerated, the voter's privacy is not maintained and vote tampering is
not prevented. It is suitable for Internet polling site. In trusted authority systems the
election officials are trusted to maintain the integrity of the election, voter privacy is
somehow maintained and vote tampering is prevented in these systems. This type of
voting systems is suitable for small-scale voting, for which the election official can be
trusted. In individually verifiable systems conducting the e-voting process is secured,
efficient and private elections are possible, the disadvantage of this type is that the
voter is responsible for insuring that his vote has been accounted for in the final
election tally, these systems are impractical for civic elections as no independent
observer can verify the elections. In the last category of Internet voting, universally
verifiable, anybody can verify the election without compromising voter's privacy.
Provision of this level of protection is difficult. These systems can only be used for
yes/no election due to contradictions among requirements.
Cetinkaya and Cetinkaya, (2007), e-voting system should also involve four phases:
Voters register themselves to registration authorities and the list of eligible voters is
compiled before the election day, on the election day registered voters request ballot
or voting privilege from the registration authorities and the registration authorities
check the credentials of those attempting to vote and only allow those who are eligible
and registered before. Voter casts his vote and finally the tallying authorities count the
votes and announce the election result.
According to Storer and Duncan, (2004) Yarmouk University (YU) is the second
oldest university in Jordan and account for more than 30,000 students in 11 colleges
and 53 departments. The university conducts a yearly election of students’ council,
where such event is considered the most important and might lead to critical disputes
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 based on political and social issues. This study tried to explore how students will
perceive electronic systems used in an election process and what factors will influence
such process. The study utilized the technology acceptance model (TAM) with some
extensions to it. Based on the literature e-voting refers to the use of computer or
computerized voting equipment to cast ballot in an election, this term sometimes is
used more specifically to refer to voting that takes place over the Internet.
According to Toe, Srivastava and LiJiang, (2008), "E-government is the use of
information and communication technologies and the Internet to enhance the
accessibility to and delivery of all facets of government services and operations for
the benefit of citizens, businesses, employees and other stakeholders is continuously
transforming public services delivery system".
Johnson, (2006), On the other hand, e-democracy is defined as “the use of the Internet
as a medium for democratically selecting political leaders, public policies, or both".
According to Bozinis and Lakovou, (2005), E-democracy has two main objectives;
the first one is to provide citizens with the accessibility to information and knowledge
about the political process, services and choices available; and the second one is to
make possible the transition from passive information access to active citizen
participation. The main characteristics of e-democracy are dissemination of political
information, e-voting and participation in e-decision making.
According to Kitlan and Joseph, (2008) and Bhatnagar, (2004) When identifying e-
democracy within e-government categories, it fits most under government-to-citizens
(G2C).
2.3.1 Why Use E-Voting:

According to Data-monitor (2008), election voting machines have provided a number

of benefits to the election process. For example, direct recording electronic machines
can be equipped with audio or tactile devices that allow disable citizen to cast ballot
independently, they also help conduct election in more efficient and effective manner,
like reducing the cost associated with printing ballot and hiring extra polling staff.
Voting machines can also spit out election tallies much quicker and more accurately
than exhausted polling station staff; they reduce human errors in generating election
result and also reduce the cost of conducting election. So the major benefits of e
voting could be summarized in the following points: reduced costs, increased

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 participation and voting options, greater speed and accuracy placing and tallying
votes, greater accessibility and flexibility for the disable.
Bishop and Wagner, (2007) as we pinpointed few benefits of e-voting, some risks are
associated with using and depending on electronic systems. Programming errors can
be very simple like adding semi colon in the wrong place can completely change a
program. There are many risks experienced during the development stage of any
system, product delivery, maintenance between elections and the pre-and post-
election intervals. The greatest threat identified involves a person gaining access to a
voting system and interring malicious code into the voting system software. This
malicious code could exploit vulnerabilities in the voting software to spread virally
from machine to machine causing voting machine to fail to record votes, failing to
comply with legal requirement and calculating vote totals in a way that is inconsistent
with legal requirements. Applying technology to solve one problem may introduce
other problems. For example, E-voting systems are introduced to eliminate paper and
many other problems, but without a paper copy, the voters cannot check that their
votes are correctly recorded and cannot independently validate votes’ totals.
According to Gerlach, (2009) electronic voting can be secure and confidential as
paper-based voting. However, to work properly, such systems must first incorporate
seven design principles. The first is proven security; all protocols and techniques must
be mathematically proven secure. Second, trustworthy design responsibility;
government security agencies should be responsible for creating secure voting system.
Third, source code; must be published and made publicly accessible. Forth, vote
verification; it should be possible to verify that all votes have been correctly
accounted for in the final election tally. Fifth, voters’ accessibility; system should be
accessible to all and easy to use. Sixth, ensure classification: techniques like onion
routing must be used to ensure classification. And finally, expert oversight; team of
experts selected and approved by all major parties taking part in election.

2.3.2 E-Voting Experiences Around The World

Klossner (2007), and Towns (2008), the State of California allows e-voting machines
to be used only under strict conditions. Polling stations won't be able to have more
than one of those systems in place, and county registrars will have to take steps such
as reinstalling the software and firmware for the devices and resetting them

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 encryption key. E-voting systems were used by one quarter to one-third of California
voters in November elections year 2006. But during state sponsored review of the
machines and their source code, a team of penetration tester found 15 security
problems, including the ability to exploit flaws in windows.
Songini, (2007), in the case of Florida State, the Florida legislature passed a bill that
would require all voting districts in the state to replace most touch-screen voting
systems with optical scan devices. The bill estimates the cost of replacing the touch-
screen systems at $18.5 million.
Seligson, (2008), in America's voting systems shift from lever machines and hand-
counted paper to optical scanners and touch screens with printed voter-verified paper
audit trails and the system served an estimated 133 million voters on Nov.4
Towns (2008), Vuyst and Fairchild, (2005), On the other hand, and in the European
Union countries, e-voting was introduced as a part of the federal and provincial
elections in Belgium in November 1991, when two cantons were selected for an
experiment in evoting. Through a law of 11 April 1994, this experiment was
broadened and institutionalized to 20% of all voting areas and since 1999, 44% of all
voting is registered electronically to attain 100% by 2006 elections.
The main objectives of Belgium government from shift to e-voting system are
difficult to manage and control manual voting, reduced the costs, announce the result
earlier and make the result more accurate.
2.3.3 Student’s Council Election Cases

Normally, the elections of students’ council at any institution and anywhere in the
world, doesn’t elicit much attention. Cases of student council elections using e-voting
system:
(Ramos, 2006) In Brazil, the student council elections project was developed in a
public school located in Serra Azul, and it includes the electronic voting system,
developed and used by the student and some. Also, Cleveland high schools are
choosing their student council leaders using e-voting machine.
According to Alrai Newspaper, (2009), In Jordan, the issue is different, as it is used as
a yardstick to measure present and future trends of the Jordanian kingdom. Also, there
is great emphasis on prestigious image of the position within the university society
more than public service for the community. A student candidate in Yarmouk
University must have the following conditions (www.yu.edu.jo): he/she should have

14
 an accumulated average not less than 60%, must have at least a 12-credit hour load
through the semester (a full-time student), must not have less than 36 credit hour to
graduate from the university, and did not have any warnings or punishments during
his/her study at the university. In the year 2009, a large fight broke out at Yarmouk
University between students. This resulted in physical damages to windows, cars and
buildings on campus, as well as some injury of people, including a security guards,
the reason cited for the fight was student’s elections.
According to Rawashda, (2009), the objectives of the students’ council election can
be summarized in the following points:
I. Represent all students in the department and act as a voice for the
interests, opinions, and concerns of that student body of the department.
II. Act as an intermediary between students and the faculty and
administration in the department.
III. Represent the student body in faculty and staff committees and
meetings. Student council election process: In order to vote, a student must be
listed in the enrollment services office.
Rawashda, (2020), Voters must sign the student print-out. Election administrator
then highlights each voter’s name as he/she votes. Once a name has been highlighted
and signed, the student may not vote again. Voter is given numbered election ballot.
Voting will be by secret ballot. Voter fills out ballot (inside the polling booth) and
places his/ her ballot inside the ballot box.

2.3.4 E-voting using Blockchain

Blockchain has become important in almost all the fields but one of the most valid domains is
voting. Barnes et al. (2016). To construct a secure electronic voting machine is a difficult
task as it is a crucial system that must be executed without failure. The advantages of e-
voting using blockchain includes:

i. Greater transparency due to open and distributed ledgers

ii. Inherent Anonymity
iii. Security and Reliability (especially against Denial of service attacks)
iv. Immutability (strong integrity for the voting scheme and individual votes.)

15
 Blockchain distributes the information of votes to thousands of computers that makes
impossible to alter or delete votes once they have been cast. This method promotes greater
trust between voters and governments by protecting their data. Zibin Zheng1 et al (2018)
Blockchain will allow all to cast their votes on smartphone or from the computer with the
apps, rather than having a queue at polling stations. Implementing blockchain will not require
a government to change their existing system rather their existing platform can be re-
modelled. Julija Golosova, et al (2018) The major weakness of blockchain is that it can
handle a small string of text that simply record a balance transfer between two parties.
However, Interplanetary file system (IPFS) provides much of the infrastructure needed for
the blockchain content storage as it provides permanent decentralized web and no central
entity controls the data.

16
 CHAPTER THREE

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 Rapid Application Development

In course of this study, the Rapid application Development Methodology (RAD) is going to
be used. Before going further, the researcher will like to give brief description of what RAD
is all about Based on the researcher understands. RAD is a software development process that
uses minimal planning in favour of prototyping, RAD according to designed to give a much
faster development and higher quality results than the traditional life cycle. The RAD is
manila designed to make use of the most recent powerful software, and uses prototype.
According to (Whiten. 2004), RAD is referred to as a merger of different structure.
Techniques most especially the data information, which uses prototype in their software
system development. There are so many Rapid application developments which include
software prototyping. We are basically going to use the software prototyping and a little of
iterative development process.
3.1.1 Software Prototyping

Software prototyping is referred to as an activity, in which during a certain state of

software development an incomplete version of the program is developed. Prototyping only
stimulates a very few aspect of the program features and in most cases is different from the
main program. The main aim of software prototyping is to allow users of the software to
evaluate the developer project proposal or the design of the eventual product by trying them
out rather than interpreting the project design verbally for the end users. There are so many
types software prototyping, but in course of this project, we are going to focus on only
prototyping which is “throwaway prototyping” (also known as closes ended prototyping).
This is because throwaway prototyping aims at building a very close ended prototyping in a
structural manner, which is continually been refined and rebuilt. Throwaway prototyping

17
acknowledges the fact that the developer does not understand the system’s full requirement,
however this method builds

3.2 System Design

The online voting system (OVS) or (E-voting system) is designed to give

students of Federal College of Education (technical) Omoku, easy, fast and reliable
means of voting and been voted for in the student union government elections every
academic session.
The system is a window-based system, designed for the free and fair conduct
of student union government elections in Federal College of Education (Technical)
Omoku

3.3 Proposed System Design

The architecture of the proposed system is as shown in Figure 2. The e-Voting App maybe
accessed using the command line interface or the web browser which in our case will be
Chrome with the MetaMask plugin embedded in it. If the user accesses the app using
command line interface, he is greeted with the Nodejs console. The commands have to be
typed in here. Else, the user can utilize the user interface built using React & Native Base to
send the commands. Web3.js is a collection of libraries which allow you to interact with a
local or remote Ethereum node, using an HTTP, WebSocket or IPC connection. The
commands are sent by Web3js using RPC(s) and are detected at the RPC Endpoint of
Ganache to be further processed by the Ethereum Virtual Machine. The voting smart contract
created will be deployed over this blockchain. The config file controls the various
configuration parameters of the blockchain.

18
Figure 3.1 Proposed Design appraoch

19
3.4 The System Architecture

20
3.5 Use Case Diagram

3.6 Class Diagram

21
3.5 The Home Page

This page views, show case the login button and view result of the election. In
this page you just need to login and connect you metamask wallet to cast a vote.

3.6 The Login/Sign-Up Page

In this page, a form is displayed right in the middle part of the homepage, for a
registered user to gain access to the voting platform and the full website. It also
provides a for users to login and gain login otp, to be able to access the voting
platform. By clicking on the login button, the system redirects the user to the voting
platform.

22
3.8 The Aspirants’ Information Page

This page views diverse information about the aspirants e.g. pictures, personal
data, departments, schools, manifesto’s etc. Information about aspirants/candidates for
various positions/offices is displayed in a very simple and linear way. A picture of the
aspirant/candidate is displayed and hypertext “information” is included beneath the
picture. Once this hypertext is clicked, the full information page of that
aspirant/candidate is displayed and right at the bottom of the information page there’s
also a hypertext “vote”. Once the user clicks on the vote button, it redirects the user to
the voting platform, where the user is to vote for the candidate who owns the
information preceding the voting page.

3.9 Voting Page

This page will displays a picture of a ballot box and paper entering inside of it.
Two buttons are displayed in this page, one at the right and the other at the left hand
side of the ballot box. The first button is to vote while the other is for confirmation of
vote. The user is expected to click both buttons before his/her vote is captured by the
system. If any of the buttons is left out, before logging out or leaving the page, that
vote automatically becomes void.

23
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