Proposed Title: PHILSCA Web-based Secured Election System

Why did I chose this research title: Primarily I choose the name of the school since what I am

aiming for this system is to be used within the institution. I also infused the word secured as this

will be an offline voting system so that no other person outside the school has access to it only

students with provided log ins can use the system. Moreover, upon using the log ins it’s a one-

time usage only to ensure the accuracy of the result or in other terms no students can vote more

than once.

Introduction

The explosion of the Internet and the World Wide Web in the late 1990s led many

individuals both inside and outside of the electoral administrations field to speculate about the

possibility of using this new public resource to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and

legitimacy of democratic elections. Technology increasingly offers new mechanisms for

conducting traditionally-manual processes, and elections are no exception. There are many

different technologies that can be used to support the electoral process. E-counting allows

electoral institutions to vote faster than the manual method (Manik Sukoco, 2017).

Following on this discussion, several studies and experiments were developed, in

independent jurisdictions and with mixed results. The overwhelming consensus which emerged

from these studies is that Internet Voting presents numerous risks which need to be properly

addressed before widespread deployment can take place.

The current discourse on these technologies includes such terms as electronic voting

machines, e-voting, e-enabled elections, new voting technologies (NVT), remote voting, precinct

count optical scanning (PCOS), and e-counting. This array of terminology relates to different
technological solutions. The field of election technologies concerning voting and counting is

developing, and the conceptual framework is still emerging. Therefore, it is easy to find the same

terms being used in different ways in different countries or regions, which can create confusion.

The possible benefits of internet voting must be weighed against the risks to which this

polling method is exposed. As has been emphasized elsewhere, but bears repeating, every

election conducted by whatever means should comply faithfully with the same basic principles

of secrecy and anonymity, fairness, accuracy, and transparency.

Every polling system, whether it uses pencil and paper, punch cards, touch-screen

(DRE), or any other method, must assure that voters are identified accurately and that their

votes are counted accurately. In most cases this must be done without allowing any means to

associate a particular vote with a particular voter. It is also essential that the citizenry have

confidence in the results; in other words, that the system chosen not only conforms to these

basic requirements, but that it does so in a manner that is clear and well understood by all

participants. Every polling method should be as secret and anonymous, fair, accurate, and

transparent as a well-managed paper-and-pencil balloting system.

In this short paper we ought to measure the accuracy of voting results using the web-

based system that has been developed. Along side with it is the security of the voting system

and its confidentiality.

Background of the Study

Along with the rapid development of the world of technology today, no doubt has

increased the use of the internet in various parts of the world, one of which is the Philippines.

Based on data from the Internet World Statistics (2019), it is stated that in 2019 it tends to
increase from 2017, which is 79 million internet users or growing by 22 million. So, it can be

said that the Philippines is the thirteenth country of the largest internet users with an average age

ranging from 18-24 years. The data explains that the highest internet users in the Philippines are

the younger generation. The younger generation with that age range can be classified into

millennial groups, namely those born in 1995-2010. This millennial generation is a digital

generation that often uses social networks in this case social media, such as Facebook,

Instagram, Twitter, and so on to communicate.

The Philippines is an ASEAN country that has implemented e-voting nationally since the

election six years ago. E-voting was implemented because the Philippines has a bad history of

electoral fraud. We know that e-voting is part of e-democracy in the Philippines. In the 1986

elections, Ferdinand Marcos was found guilty of cheating, so that since 2010, the Philippines

adopted e-counting for three elections from 2010, 2013, and 2016.

In spite of that according to the Congressional Research Service of Election Reform and

Electronic Voting Systems, vendors and election jurisdictions generally state that they do not

transmit election results from precincts via the internet, but they may transmit them via a direct

modem connection or Virtual Private Network (VPN). However, even this approach may be

subject to attack via the internet, especially if encryption and verification are not sufficient. That

is because telephone transmission systems are themselves increasingly connected to the internet

and computers to which the receiving server may be connected, such as through a local area

network (LAN), may have internet connections.

In line with this, the votes that are cast using the electronic voting machines, are stored in

a safe storage or space in the computer machine memory. But, Doug Jones, PhD, Professor of

Computer Science at University of Iowa explained in his book, Secure Electronic Voting, ‘For
over a decade, all direct recording electronic machines have been required to contain redundant

storage, but this redundant storage is not an independent record of the votes, because it is created

by the same software that created the original record. As a result, the multiple files are of limited

use to check the correctness of the software.

Significance of the Study

Reference/s