2.1 Brief Overview of Governing Body and Election in Bangladesh ..... time, in 2007, the opposition Awami League (AL) repeatedly raised question on voter lists ...
An Electronic Voting Model for Ensuring Voting Rights beyond Geographical Constraint
By
Jannatul Ferdaus Nationality: Bangladeshi Nishat Raihana Nationality: Bangladesh A thesis Report submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the Degree of Bachelor of Science in Computer Science – Information Communication Technology
Supervisor: Examination Committee:
Amina Akhter Amina Akhter Dr. AKM Moniruzzaman Mollah
Scholarship Donor: Asian University for Women (AUW), Bangladesh.
Asian University for Women Chittagong, Bangladesh May 2015.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This research paper would not be possible without the supervision of our advisor and support from our fellow mates. Especially, we would like to convey our gratitude toward our honorable advisors and contributors. At first we would like to show our appreciation to Professor Amina Akhter for her excellent guidance, motivation for doing research on this particular topic. Her kind incentive, caring and invaluable detailed suggestion on organization of the paper helped us to successfully accomplish the paper. Secondly, we would like to express our gratitude to Mr. Imrannur for helping us understanding some of the scenario of this project and guided us to achieve our desired goal. Finally, we sincerely be grateful to our parents, family, and friends, who give their valuable suggestion and support to complete the project. The whole project of this research paper would not be possible without the active encouragement from all of them.
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ABSTRACT In democratic countries, voting is an vital tool to collect and re-act on people‘s views. It is the best indicator of the tone and direction of the political system, providing insights into the basic nature and actual functioning of the system as a whole. Bangladesh, being a democratic country, since her inception in 1971, practices the parliamentary voting of civil citizens for selecting the member of its government body. However, having drawbacks in its manual paper based voting system such as high cost and time consuming, no voting opportunity for Non Resident Bangladeshi, false voting, scope for corruption, assassination and so on, an enormous demand of a wellorganized way of election has risen up. In order to solve those controversies regarding manual voting issues, the technology of electronic voting bring to the limelight. Therefore, we have come up with an efficient voting model which can extend the traditional system into the electrical platform and amends it through an e-voting database with high security, accuracy, accessibility, fast, and cost effectiveness. The paper will illustrate the existing parliamentary voting process in Bangladesh, outline its drawbacks, and presents the proposed and developed database for mitigating the limitations of current voting system.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION 1.1 1.2 1.3
CHAPTER 2
Overview Problem Statement Objective
1 1 2
LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1
2.2
Brief Overview of Governing Body and Election in Bangladesh
3
2.1.1
Bangladesh Parliament
3
2.1.2
Election Commission of Bangladesh
3
2.1.3
Caretaker Government
3
Existing Parliamentary Electoral System in Bangladesh 2.2.1 Voter registration and Voter List Publication
2.3
CHAPTER 3
4
2.2.2
Registration of Political Party
5
2.2.3
Registration of Nominee
5
2.2.4
Promotion of Registered Party and Nominees
6
2.2.5
Voting Procedure
6
2.2.6
Vote Counting and Result Publication
7
Limitation of Existing Electoral System
7
PROPOSED SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE 3.1
Proposed System
9
3.2
Advantages of Proposed Electronic Voting System
9
3.3
System Development Life Cycle of Proposed Electronic Voting
9
3.3.1 User Requirement Specification
10
3.3.2
Software and Hardware Requirement
10
3.3.3
System Architecture of Proposed Model
11
3.3.4
System Design
12
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CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION 4.1
System Installation
29
4.2
System Testing
29
4.3
Maintaining Transaction Properties
29
4.4
User Manual
30
LIMITATION, CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATION 5.1
Limitation
31
5.2
Conclusion
32
5.3
Recommendation
32
Reference Appendix
33
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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Voting is considered as the core of democratic society as it allows populace to choose eligible representatives to run the government for next couple of years. It is integrated process between the voter and the party itself to make decision for the betterment of the country. Bangladesh, being the democratic country is following the parliamentary voting system which allows voter to choose their governing body through direct participation in manual voting process. However, the manual system contains multiple limitations including geographical, economical, and privacy issues. Therefore, modification and enhancement of the existing system has become an integral part to boost the voter satisfaction and the vision of democracy during voting. The focus of this paper is to familiarize the people with the voting system of People Republic of Bangladesh, its limitation and introducing a proposed and developed model for reducing the shortcomings of existing system. The first chapter demonstrates the overview of voting system in Bangladesh. Besides, it has introduced electronic voting system of different countries. Later the chapter presents the general limitation of manual and electronic voting system. Based on the comparison between two distinct systems and the context of People‟s Republic of Bangladesh, we have come up with a conclusion of an enhanced and partially automated voting system particularly for Bangladesh. Finally we will close the chapter with our motivation behind conducting the research and development on electronic voting system. 1.1
Overview In People‟s Republic of Bangladesh, voting has gone through a huge modification. Specially, after the victory of Bangladesh, it started its journey with parliamentary election system. Later it transformed its parliamentary election system to presidential system. In 1991, it again implemented paper based voting system which continues till tenth national parliamentary election occurred in 2013 [2]. Later, the current governing body of Bangladesh proposed to implement Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) to conduct electoral system of the country. However, most of the nations throughout the world have already implemented the electronic voting system in their respective countries. Electronic voting technologies first began in 1960s with punch card counting machines. According to the report of National Democratic Institute in 2012, 31 countries particularly from South America and Asia are depending on electronic voting machine for performing election [1]. 1.2 Problem Statement Both manual and electronic voting system has always been criticized for not being able to assure the transparency, accuracy and the privacy of electoral system. The manual system has always been questioned for the lack of lucidity and the accuracy of voting. Particularly in Bangladesh where political instability is a regular phenomenon, the manipulation of result and the violence during the voting period is a common scenario for the citizen of its country. Therefore, electronic voting system has become the limelight of the discussion among different scholars, scientist and authoritative governance. However, Computer scientists who have done work in 1
electronic voting system have figured out some limitations of the system. The entire scientists have outlined two major problems. The limitations are a) “Internet voting does not meet the requirements for public elections.” b) “Currently widely-deployed voting systems need improvement.” Besides those two general limitations, another major disadvantage lies in the areas of anonymity and protection against coercion and vote selling. For example, The Presidential elections of America in 2000 brought controversy in the method of casting and counting votes in public elections. Most people believe that the current system of USA should be changed. Conversely, The MIT/Caltech researchers “see a promising future for electronic voting, despite its problems today” .They advocate a new method which results in the lowest average numbers of “uncounted, unmarked, and spoiled ballots,” like in-precinct optical scanning. Their report even proposes a framework for a new voting system with a decentralized, modular design. Some other academics, like Peter Neumann agreed mostly with the MIT committee, but their papers focus on the immensity of the problem during the design and implementation of a truly secure voting system. Neumann gives a list of suggestions for "generic voting criteria" which suggests that a voting system should be so hard to tamper with and so resistant to failure that no commercial system is likely to ever meet the requirements. Another researcher Rebecca Mercuri invented the “Mercuri method” for electronic voting. A critical component of this method is very similar to the MIT proposal: a voting machine must produce human-readable hardcopy paper results, which can be verified by the voter before the vote is cast. In spite of various impressive electronic models, the questions of security and privacy still prevalent and demand of improvised implementation is still the „hotcake‟ among the researcher. [5] 1.3 Objective Throughout the study of election process of different countries and electoral model, we come up with a conclusion to develop an electronic voting database for Bangladesh which will be able to fulfill the voter requirement as well as give them a satisfactory experience about the entire voting process. The entire project is the enhanced version of manual voting system which will reduce the limitation of existing system by focusing on the following major objectives of this project a) Conduct voting beyond geographical constraint. b) Efficiently use of money and time. c) Better security and transparency. d) Accuracy in vote counting.
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CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1
Brief Overview of Governing Body and Election in Bangladesh
2.1.1 Bangladesh Parliament Bangladesh Parliament named as Jatiya Sangsad is a unicameral legislature which functions on enactment of legislation, consent to taxation and control of public expenditure, and ensuring accountability of the Government. It is consisted of 350 members where 300 members are selected from 300 regional constituencies. The rest 50 seats are preserved specifically for female candidates who are selected by vote of all those 300 members. According to the information of Bangladesh Parliament website, “This provision for 50 reserved women seats will continue for ten years from the beginning of the 9th Parliament”. Parliament is summoned, prorogued and dissolved by the President in accordance with the advice of the Prime Minister in written version [3]. The term for parliament is five years from the beginning of its first meeting. In case of civil war, the parliament term can be extended up to one year. After that Parliamentary election is occurred for selecting new members for its next Parliamentary term. During voting, if there is “no vote” which exceeds 50% of the voters, then re-election is occurred [4]. 2.1.2 Election Commission of Bangladesh In Bangladesh, Parliamentary election and President Election is conducted by Election Commission which is independent constitutional body in performing its function and is only subject to the constitution and its law. Election Commission is composed of one Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and for Election Commissioner (EC).The Chief Election Commissioner acts as a secretariat of Election Commission. Both CEC and EC are elected by President and their term is five years. Election Commission is established based on the Constitutional Article No 118. For Conducting Parliamentary election, the basic functions of Election Commission are preparing voter list for election, re-selecting boundary of electoral regions, and conducting other types of election based on legislation such as Election for City Corporation, Union Parishad, Upazila, District, Hill District, and so on [5]. 2.1.3 Caretaker Government Parliamentary election is held under a non-party Caretaker Government whose term is three months. The caretaker government is consisted of a chief advisor and ten advisors who are appointed by the president. The caretaker government cannot take any policy making decision unless the necessary case [4]. 2.2
Existing Parliamentary Electoral System in Bangladesh
In Parliamentary Election Procedure there are six steps which been followed to successfully conduct the election. The following steps are strictly followed during organizing the election by election commission of Bangladesh. The steps are - [5]
Selecting 300 Constituencies by Geographical Information System Software. Voter registration and List Publication Registration of Political Party Promotion of Nominee and Political Party. 3
Voting Process Vote Counting and Result Publication.
Voter Eligibility A person can be eligible for voting by maintaining the following criteria:
The person need to be a citizen of Bangladesh Should be at least 18 years old. If the voter is declared as a being of unsound mind, he/she is not eligible for voting. The person should be declared by the law that he/she is resident of specific constituency. [4]
2.2.1
Voter Registration: Total six steps are followed for voter registration. These are: Step 1: Data Collection Step 2: Form Re-verification Step-3: Data Collection and Identity Verification in voter registration center Step-4: Voter Registration of Autistic, Prisoners‟ Voter, remaining and sick voter Step-5: Data Processing in Upazilla Server Step 6: Draft Voter List Publication and Finalizing
Data Collection In this step, initially voter of different region is estimated based on previous voter list. Based on this estimation, necessary registration officer, one supervisor for every five data collector, and one data collector for collecting three to four hundred voters‟ data is appointed. Regional data collectors visit people‟s house seven to ten days before photo taking and fill up a form with voter‟s information. They collect data of sick and autistic people as well. The data collectors submit their collected data to the supervisor who verifies the data and transfer the data to NRO. NRO finally verify it and send it to the team leader. After that, team leader inform the NRO of voter‟s photo taking time, date, and place which NRO inform to the supervisor and supervisor informs to the data collector. Then the data collector gives a slip to the voter which contains photo taking time, date, and place information [5]. Form Re – Verification In this step, voter‟s data form are entered into logbook, re-verified, re –checked and organized[5]. Data Collection and Identity Verification in Voter Registration Center In this step, voter‟s visit the regional voting center with the slip they got from data collector. Then they submit the slip and go to data entry operator. Their submitted slip is verified and then they get another form. After that, they proceed for photo taking, digital signature, and fingerprint, and submit the form that they received before. After finishing the data entry, the data goes to the team leader and Upazilla server [5].
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Voter Registration of Autistic, Prisoners’ Voter remaining and sick Voters who have not gone under the previous three procedure described above, are informed by voting center to come to the center. Then they perform their registration in the vote center. In the last three days of registration, autistic voter‟s registration is performed through visiting their home by collecting data. Regarding prisoner voter, data is collected through visiting the prison [5]. Data Processing in Upazilla Server In this step, all the data are processed in Upazilla server by checking duplicates and errors, correction of error, and so on. Then draft National Identity card is compiled and presented. After that it is reviewed for fixing errors [5]. Draft Voter List Publication and Finalizing In this step, the draft National Identity card is presented and submitted to revising authority. Then it is revised and corrected based on authorities‟ order. After that, the final voter list is compiled and authenticated by registration officer [5]. 2.2.2 Registration of Political Party Eligibility of Political Party for registration Any party need to fulfill at least one of the following conditions for being eligible for registration: The party had at least one seat with its electoral symbol in any parliamentary election held since the independence of Bangladesh. The party got five percent of total votes cast in the constituencies in which its candidates took part in any of the previous parliamentary elections. The party has established a functional central office, with a central committee and district offices in at least ten administrative districts and offices in at least fifty Upazilas or Metropolitan Thana [4]. Moreover there are some additional requirements that the party should fulfill: To elect the members of the committees at all levels, including members of the central committee To fix the goal of reserving at least 33% of all committee positions for women, including the central committee and successfully achieving this goal by the year 2020 To prohibit formation of any organization or body as its affiliated or associated body consisting of the teachers or students of any educational institution or the employees or laborers of any financial, commercial or industrial institution To finalize nomination of candidates by central parliamentary board of the party from the panels prepared by members of the Ward, Union, Thana, Upazila or District committee as the case may be of the concerned constituency [4]. All the political parties applied to Election commission for registration. The election commission then verify the political parties‟ all information and select the candidate party for registration if they follow the criteria described above [4]. 2.2.3 Registration of Nominee Eligibility of a candidate for nomination
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For a candidate, he/ she must have the following eligibility: The candidate must be a citizen of Bangladesh. The candidate needs to be at least 25 years of age. Should be a registered voter The candidate need to be nominated by a registered party or as an independent candidate The candidate cannot be holding any office of profit in service of the Republic Not have been convicted of an offence (such as corruption, murder) which carries a prison term of two years or more, unless a period of five years has passed. Not be in higher debt of utility bills or loans [4]. Nomination Process Nomination procedure for a candidate under a registered party: Candidates‟ information for being nominee is submitted to Returning officer of Election Commission. For applying nominee registration, a candidate needs to submit the following documents: An attested certificate from a registered party which will indicate that the candidate is their official nominee. A signed affidavit with the following information: An attested copy of highest education certificate obtained A description of profession/business The probable sources of income of the candidate A statement of property or debt of the candidate or his/her dependents What promises were made before an election in which the prospective candidate was elected in the past and how many of those promises are fulfilled. The amount of any loan received by the candidate alone or his/her dependents. Whether the candidate is at present accused of any criminal offence. Whether the candidate has any past criminal record [4]. 2.2.4 Promotion of Registered Party and Nominees After being registered, the party and nominees promote themselves to the voters by visiting their home and by putting posters, billboards, and using other manual and electronic media following the constitutional rules [4]. 2.2.5 Voting Procedure The basic voting process was prescribed as follows:
Polling opened from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m Persons had to be on the Voter List in order to be allowed to vote The identity of voters was checked by presiding officer against their photograph on the list. National ID card is required to vote For removing duplicate voting, voters are marked with indelible ink on their thumb The ballot is stamped and voter make a thumb print as proof of receiving the ballot Some other features of the law were: Blind or “incapacitated” persons can be helped by a companion of their choice. If a voter spoils a ballot, they can request a replacement.
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2.2.6
Vote Counting and Result Publication
The polling officers, polling agents, and observers are authorized for counting ballot paper based votes under the supervision of presiding officer in polling center. After completion of the count, the Presiding Officer had to prepare a Statement of the Count, indicating the number of valid votes polled by each contesting candidate and number of invalid ballots [4]. The Presiding Officer had to also prepare a Ballot Paper Account, which showed: The total number of ballot papers assigned to the Polling Centre. The number of ballot papers taken out of the ballot boxes. The number of tendered and challenged ballot papers. The number of unused ballot papers. The number of spoilt ballot papers. Some features of the counting and results process were: Polling Agents can request a re-count, which would be undertaken if the Presiding Officer felt the request to be reasonable. Polling Agents need to sign the result indicating their acceptance where relevant. Polling Agents are entitled to receive a certified copy of the result at the Polling Centre. The result need to be posted at the polling centre, prior to being sent to the ARO (Assistant Returning Officer) and RO (Returning Officer) of Election Commission[4]. Voting Result Process: After finishing vote counting, the ballots and other materials are then packaged up and sent to the respective Constituency centre for tabulation with the help of the security forces. Depending upon the geography of the area, results are either tabulated at the Assistant Returning Officer (ARO) and then transmitted to the Returning Officer (RO) for full tabulation, or are sent directly to the RO. In some areas ROs announce results in the early hours of the morning on the day after the election. The EC in capital Dhaka has a results centre, where it reports results from the Constituencies [4]. 2.3
Limitation of Existing Electoral System
Electoral system provides a good platform of democracy by providing opportunity for the citizen to choose their government body. Being a democratic country, Bangladesh parliament electoral system promises to provide its citizen to have right of choosing government. However, because of having limitations, electoral system in Bangladesh cannot fulfill its promise of providing its citizen‟s right of choice properly. Some of the limitations of current electoral system of Bangladesh have been demonstrated below. Geographical constraint According to constitutional legislation, voting is a right for a citizen who is 18 years old or above. However, because of geographical constraint in manual voting system, all the voters‟ right is not fulfilled. Current electoral system requires the voters‟ physical presence in their local constituency for voting. If any voter is out of the country or constituency for their personal business, they do not get scope for voting since the current electoral system is manual and based on ballot paper. As a result, even if the system includes people from outer constituency to give vote, it 7
will be conflicting with the security issues of voting since current system has “thumb painting” method for the removal of duplicate voting.
Manipulation of Voter List In the past, electoral system had a space to manipulate the voter list which violates the aim of election. In 2006, the Voter List was severely criticized since it contained multiple entries, names of dead persons and fake names. As a result, later it causes a political chaos and disputes. At that time, in 2007, the opposition Awami League (AL) repeatedly raised question on voter lists and demanded the replacement of the Chief Election Commissioner, whom it accused of compiling a “fraudulent‟ voters‟ list. Then the necessity of country‟s emergency, the Caretaker Government ordered to prepare a fresh voter list. Based on that, practice of voter‟s data collection by enumerator's door to door visit of citizen and digital signature has started which has added one step improvement of electoral system [4]. Violence Violence, murder, destruction of houses, industries, and conflicts are the common phenomena in current electoral system. Since the system requires the physical presence of the voters, they are always in risk of all these types of violence. Though lots of security is maintained with the help of army and police, still conflicts and murder continues during voting. Sometimes, the security groups such as police and army forces are being attacked by public chaos. According to BBC news, In January, 2014 election, more than 100 polling stations were torched overnight, around 18 citizen were killed during polling, and dozens of people have died during attack time [6]. It indicates that voter‟s physical attendance during voting causes chaos and chance of being attacked and murdered. Time Consuming, human error, and manipulation of result The whole voting process takes more time particularly during voter registration and result publication. Moreover, the result can be manipulated since it is based on ballot paper which can easily be manipulated during counting. When the constituency result is being sent to RO (Returning Officer) and ARO (Assistant Returning Officer), it can be in risk of violence and attack during transportation time though the result is being carried with the help of arm forces. Human vote counting error can be occurred since very few people are counting thousands of ballot papers. Finally, the manual electoral system cannot provide a reliable result due to the risk of error, violence, and manipulation. However, the current electoral system‟s all these limitations can be solved by the technological implementation of voting. Most of the countries practice their electoral system digitally with hardware devices from the past to present.
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CHAPTER 3 PROPOSED SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE 3.1
Proposed System Due to the high maintenance cost and lack of transparency in the existing voting model, we are proposing an enhanced model with the incorporation of existing system. The model will ensure the voting rights of Non - Resident Bangladeshi as well as it will allow people to give vote from their home place. Besides, the model will ensure better voting experience for its citizen through the maintenance of high security and transparency in result processing and publication. As the proposed model is completely online based, it will initially cost some amount of money for software development. However, once the system is implemented, election commission does not need to spend huge amount of money for the maintenance of the system in every year. As a result, the proposed model will confiscate the limitation of the existing model as well as fulfill the expectation of its citizen in the country. 3.2
Advantages of E-Voting System Information technology has a greatest influence in our social, economic, as well as political life because of its fast output using less human resources. E-voting system is adding an easier platform in the political part of a country by ensuring proper democratic practices. E-voting system is getting human attention more day by day because of its some of the following advantages mentioned below:
Auditable, Transparent, Secure and Accurate: Automated elections mean that people can trust the results because it allows for a process that is so auditable, transparent and secure. Of course, electronic voting also help to reduce human error.
Faster Result and Build Trust Electronic voting and electronic counting means that people can get official results within hours instead of weeks. Again, this builds trust [7].
Can increase Engagement and Turnout Technology will be a useful way of improving voter education and registration, to increase engagement and voter turnout.
Increase Accessibility It‟s also vitally important that everyone who is eligible to participate in elections can do so and e – voting is very good at making voting more accessible as it‟s easier for disable people to vote independently.[7] 3.3
System Development Life Cycle of Proposed Electronic Voting
For developing our proposed electronic voting database, we have followed five steps of System Development Life Cycle. First, we gathered users‟ common requirements regarding voting, 9
registration, nomination, and result by analyzing the existing system and literature review and we come up with our proposed Parliamentary electronic model. Next, we did the feasibility analysis of our proposed model. Then we finalized our development tools requirement such as hardware and software requirements. After that, we developed logical design with Entity-Relationship Diagram, did coding for front end and backend Physical Design based on logical design. Then we approached for system implementation based on our implementation plan. 3.3.1 User Requirement Specification Being a democratic country, all the citizen of Bangladesh has rights to give vote in a convenient environment. As the existing model has some limitation, we proposed an enhanced electronic voting model for the citizen of Bangladesh. While designing the model, we tried to determine the user requirement through the rigorous research on different electronic voting model in other countries. From the research findings, we have come to the conclusion that user always want to experience a friendly and secured voting environment to give vote. As the existing model was unable to ensure the voting rights for Non Resident Bangladeshi, users expect that the enhanced model should have the opportunity to fulfill the voting requirement of NRB. Besides that, in country like Bangladesh where political instability creates lots of chaos, the result processing of election always raised transparency and accuracy issues. Thus in order to mitigate that question mark a code is going to be written down to process the result electronically to ensure transparency and accuracy of the result. Therefore while designing the model we consider all the above factor so that the sites can make sure a better voting experience for its user. 3.3.2
Software and Hardware Requirement We have deployed through PHP script, XAMPP, MySQL database to develop the systems. Therefore the chapter is going to explain the development of the system. This research project is using PHP to develop the system. Because the PHP is a server site scripting used for web browsers, hence even within the HTML page one can implant PHP to execute each time the page is visited [8]. PHP is very easy to use and does not require sophisticated knowledge in any programming language, and secondly it does not contain many system resources as such it is typically very fast and does not normally slow the system process. The PHP is also a free and open source application and therefore it is possible for users to extend it by writing their own extension and executing them. MySQL is another open source application which the database constructs that enables PHP and Apache to work together to access and display data in a readable format to a browser. PHP is a language that is design to process complex query. As a relational database system, MySQL allows many different tables to be joined together for maximum efficiency and speed. In the earlier days of the web, server side scripting was almost exclusively performed by using a combination of C programs [6]. To impalement electronic voting model, we need a desktop with 4GB RAM, and good processor with internet access. As the system is completely online based thus we need a good internet connection to run the system in our desktop or pcs.
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3.3.3 System Architecture of Proposed Model E – Voting model is designed to ensure the voting rights of all citizens regardless of their place and national identity. It is an extended version of manual system with the assurance of high security and transparency in the system. In spite of replacing the manual voting system, it is incorporated with the system to create a friendly environment for better user experience during voting. As the proposed model is the comprehensive version of the manual system, voters have to do the national ID card registration manually. Without having the national ID card voter will not be eligible to use the database. As soon as voters collect national ID card from election commission they will get access the sites. The sites will determine eligible voter for upcoming vote through the manual process of registration. The figure 3.3.3 (a) depicts the process of using the database before registering as a voter of upcoming vote.
Figure 3.3.3 (a) Process of Accessing the Database
Once voters get access to the database, they will register themselves as a voter for the upcoming vote. The figure 3.3.3(b) illustrates the process of database for user mode. At first, voter has to fill up the Basic Information form through the input of some basic information. Once voter fill up the form they will get an alphanumeric security code in their respective email address. This security code will be considered as first security code during the voter registration and online voting form. Secondly voter has to fill up the voter registration form. Before fill up the form voter has to, verify themselves with the first security code. If, voter is unable to verify themselves with the insertion of right security code they won‟t be able to fill up the voter registration form. At that moment voter have to communicate with Election Commission department for accessing the database. However, if voter successfully enter the security code they will access the voter
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Figure 3.3.3 (b) System Architecture for user panels
registration form. The form pattern is similar to the manual one however at the end of the form voter have to answer a security question according to their preference. As soon as voters submit the form the they will get another security code in their email address. The security question that voter answered will later be considered as second step security and the the last security code will be considered as the final step security during online voting. Finally, during the voting period voter will get the online voting form if they successfully verify themselves in all three step security. If voter failed to verify their identity they will be restricted to access the database for giving vote electronically. 3.3.4 System Design i. Logical Design – Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD)
As there are two types of user (Voter and Admin) in the proposed database, we have come up with entity with sub-entities and their attributes for creating Entity Relationship Diagram. a) Entity and generalization There are main two entities which are Voter Form and Admin Form. These two entities are generalized into some sub-entities. Voter form has two sub-entities which are registration form and enquiry form. Registration form is generalized into three sub-entities named basic information form, voter registration form, and online voting form. Enquiry form is generalized into four subentities named voter enquiry form, result enquiry form, nominee list enquiry form, election schedule enquiry form. The other main entity admin form has four sub-entities which are election schedule entry form, Voter list entry form, manual vote entry form, nomination entry form. Figure 3.3.4(a) demonstrate the generalized entity with attributes of the proposed system
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Figure 3.3.4(a): Entity and generalized entity of proposed model
Entity with attributes b) Voter’s Basic Information Form: The entity has the attributes which are Voter‟s national ID no., voter‟s name, first security code, voter‟s email address, and mobile number. Voter‟s name is a composite attribute with two component attributes which are last name and first name. Voter‟s national ID no. is the primary key for the entity. Schema for the voter basic information entity is: Voter‟s Basic Information Form = (Voter‟s national ID no., voter‟s name, first security code, voter‟s email address, voter‟s mobile number). Figure 3.3.4(b) presents the entity with attributes of “Voter‟s Basic information Form”.
Figure 3.3.4(b): „Voter‟s Basic Information form‟ entity with attributes.
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c) Voter Registration Form The entity has the attributes which are Voter‟s national ID No., voter‟s name, voter‟s father‟s name, voter‟s mother‟s name, and constituency, date of birth, profession, marital status, voter‟s husband name, sex, security code, voter‟s permanent address, and voter‟s present address. The composite attributes are voter‟s name, date of birth, security code, present address, and permanent address. Component attributes of Voter‟s name is last name and first name. Date of birth attribute has three component attributes which are month, year, and day. Component attributes of security code are first security code and last security code. Both present address and permanent address has the same component attributes which are village/ mohalla/road no., post office, union, ward no., thana/upazilla, district, and division. Voter‟s national ID no. is the primary key for the entity. Schema for voter registration form entity has given below: Voter Registration Form = (Voter‟s national ID No., voter‟s name, voter‟s father‟s name, voter‟s mother‟s name, constituency, date of birth, profession, marital status, voter‟s husband name, sex, security code, voter‟s permanent address, voter‟s present address). Figure 3.3.4(c) presents the entity with attributes of “Voter Registration Form”.
Figure 3.3.4 (c ): „Voter Registration Form‟ entity with attributes.
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d) Online Voting Form Attributes of this entity are voter‟s national ID No., first security code, second security code, security question, security question answer, election type, party, and nominee. Voter‟s national ID no. is the primary key for the entity. The attribute nominee and party are multi valued since the voter has to give vote to a nominee form multiple nominees of multiple parties given in online voting form. Schema for Online voting form is given below: Online Voting Form = (voter‟s national ID No., first security code, second security code, security question, security question answer, election type, party, nominee). Figure 3.3.4(d) presents the entity with attributes of “Online Voting Form”.
Figure 3.3.4(d): „Online Voting Form‟ entity with attributes.
e) Voter List Entry Form The entity has two attributes which are voter‟s national ID number and constituency. Voter‟s national ID number is the primary key. Schema for the entity is given below: Voter List Entry Form = (Voter‟s national ID number, constituency). Figure 3.3.4(e) presents the entity with attributes of voter registration table.
Figure 3.3.4(e): „Voter List Entry Form‟ entity with attributes.
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f) Election Schedule Entry Form The attributes of the entity are schedule ID, nomination begin date, nomination end date, election begin date, election end date, and election type. Schedule ID is the primary key. Nomination begin date, nomination end date, election begin date, and election end date are composite attributes which has component attributes day, month, and year. Schema for the entity is given below: Election Schedule Entry Form = (schedule ID, nomination begin date, nomination end date, election begin date, election end date, election type). Figure 3.3.4(f) presents the entity with attributes of “Election Schedule Entry Form”.
Figure 3.3.4(f ): „Election Schedule Entry Form‟ Entity with attributes.
g) Nomination Entry Form The attributes for this entity are nomination ID number, education, election type, party, and constituency. Nomination ID number is the primary key of the entity. Constituency is multi valued since one nominee can apply for multiple seats of multiple constituencies. Schema for the entity is given below:
Nomination Entry Form = (Nomination ID number, education, election type, party, constituency). Figure 3.3.4(g) presents the entity with attributes of “Nomination Entry Form”.
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Figure 3.3.4 ( g ): „Nomination Entry Form‟ entity with attributes.
h) Manual Vote Entry Form
The attributes of this entity are voter‟s national ID, election type, nominee, and party. Voter‟s national ID is the primary key of the entity. Schema for the entity is given below: Manual Vote Entry Form = (voter‟s national ID, election type, nominee, party) Figure 3.3.4(h) presents the entity with attributes of voter registration table.
Figure3.3.4 (h): „Manual Vote Entry Form‟ entity with attributes.
i) Voter Enquiry Form Voter enquiry form has the same attributes and schema as voter registration form since query answer of a voter information is gathered from voter registration form. j) Result Enquiry Form Attributes of this entity are voter ID, Nominee ID, Nominee Name, Election type, party, constitution, total vote of nominee. Voter ID is the primary key for this entity. Schema for the entity is given below: 17
Result Enquiry Form = (voter ID, Nominee ID, Nominee Name, Election type, party, constitution, total vote of nominee). Figure 3.3.4(j) presents the entity with attributes of voter registration table.
Figure 3.3.4 (j):„Result Enquiry Form‟ entity with attributes.
k) Nominee List Enquiry Form The entity has attributes which are Nominee‟s voter ID, Nominee Name, Education, Election Type, Party, and Constituency Name. Primary key for this entity is Nominee‟s voter ID. Schema for this entity is: Nominee List Enquiry Form = (Nominee‟s voter ID, Nominee Name, Education, Election Type, Party, and Constituency Name). Figure 3.3.4(k) presents the entity with attributes of nominee list enquiry form.
Figure 3.3.4(k): „Nominee List Enquiry Form‟ entity with attributes.
l) Election Schedule Enquiry Form Election schedule enquiry form‟s attributes are same as election schedule entry‟s attributes since enquiry of election schedule is gathered from election schedule entry form given by admin. 18
m) Relationship between Entities Relationship between Election Schedule Entry Form and Election Schedule Enquiry Form: One to one. Relationship between Manual Vote Entry Form and Result Enquiry Form: Many to One. Relationship between Online voting form and Result Enquiry Form: Many to One. Relationship between Nomination Entry Form and Nominee List Enquiry Form: One to One. Relationship between Voter List Entry and Voter Enquiry Form: One to One.
Figure 3.3.4(m) presents the entity relationship diagram of proposed model.
Figure 3.3.4 (m): Final entity relationship diagram of proposed model.
ii.
Logical Design - Front end and Back end Design In software design front end is a part of software system that deals with user and the back end is part that processes the input from the front end. The separation from the software system into front – ends and back ends is a kind of abstraction that helps to keep different parts of the system separated. In the proposed system the front end is designed through Javascript, HTML/CSS and the backend is designed by PHP. The front end is responsible for checking syntax and detecting errors whereas back end performs the actual translation into object code. iii.
Physical Design
Electronic Voting model will have two major users. One is admin and the other one is voter. The database ensures some particular task for both of the users in order to successfully conducting the vote. As the design is the enhanced version of manual system thus the database will be activated only after the voter done with the national ID card registration during manual registration process. Once voter get the national ID card both voter and admin will be eligible to use the site. Here, we have exemplified the responsibilities for both of the user. 19
Admin: In the proposed model, admin will insert the list of voter for upcoming vote along with their constituency. This information will be retrieved through manual data collection during national ID card registration. As soon as admin enlisted the voter for upcoming election it will be stored into the database. Later, this information is going to be used as verification for valid voter of upcoming election. Admin will not only enlist the voter national ID card number but also he is going to input information of election schedule, nominee information. Admin will get certain period of time to insert all the respective information in the sites. Later in the section admin will particularly perform below function:
a) Voter List Entry: Admin will insert the voter list for upcoming election. During the manual ID card registration Election Commission keep the track of the voter for upcoming vote. As soon as voter get the national ID card EC publish final voter list for upcoming election. This final voter list later will be inserted by database admin to keep track of the valid voter for upcoming election. The figure 3.3.4(a) demonstrate the voter list interface of admin where admin insert the voter national ID card number and constituency
Figure3.3.4(a): Voter List Entry Interface
b) Schedule Entry: Admin will insert the election and nomination schedule in the database. The schedule will be helpful for the voter as well as the common people to be updated with upcoming schedule of the election. The figure 3.3.4(b) demonstrate the election schedule interface of admin where admin insert the beginning and the end date of election schedule
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Figure 3.3.4(b): Election Schedule Entry Interface
c) Nominee Information Entry: In the existing model nominee information can be checked thoroughly by the voter of the country. Voters have to rely on print media to access the nominee information before voting. As a result voter has very little idea about nominee background which is an obstacle for them to identify the eligible nominee for their constituency. As a result the proposed model tried to minimize the problem through allowing admin to give information of nominee in the database. The figure 3.3.4(c) demonstrates the nomination information interface of admin where admin insert the basic information of nominee for example – education, party name, constituency name.
Figure 3.3.4(c): Nomination Entry Interface
d) Manual Vote Entry: Since the proposed model is the enhanced version of the existing model thus admin has the privilege to insert the manual voting information in the database. Once admin insert the information the database itself will count the number of vote and process the 21
result of the election. The figure 3.3.4(d) depicts the process of inserting manual voting information in the database.
Figure 3.3.4(d): Manual Vote Entry Interface
User: In the proposed model if voter got their national iD number they will get into the sites and register themselves as voter of them upcoming vote. Their id number must be match with the id number of the election commission. Once they are registered as a voter they have to cross three step securities before giving vote. The security step will be validated through the randomly generated alphanumeric value. They also have to answer one of the security questions during the voter registration which later will be used as security validation during voting. User will particularly perform below function: e) Basic Information: In the electronic voting database at first voter have to do the national id card registration manually. Once voter get the national ID card voter will be eligible to register into the sites. In figure 3.3.4(e1) shows the interface of voter basic information form where voter have to mention their national id card number, name, email address and mobile number.
Figure 3.3.4 (e1): Voter Basic Information Interface
As soon as voter done with the basic information registration a randomly alpha numeric security code will be generated and will be sent to their email address. In figure 3.3.4(e2) shows the
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generation of alphanumeric number and the figure 3.3.4(e3) the presenting the snapshots of email where the code has been sent.
Figure 3.3.4 (e2): Voter Basic Information Interface with security code
This security code will later be considered as a first step security during the online voting.
Figure 3.3.4 (e3): Voter Basic Information Interface with security code in email
f) Voter Registration: As soon as voter is done with the basic information registration, voter will be eligible to register as „vote‟ for upcoming election. Before fill up the voter registration form voter have to verify themselves with the security code that they have got during the basic information registration. The figure 3.3.4(f1) is the interface for validation before voter registration where voter have to insert their national ID card number along with first security code and constituency name.
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Figure 3.3.4 (f1): Verification before voter registration
If voter successfully be able to verify themselves they will be eligible to fill up the voter registration form. At the end of the form voter will give answer of one security question which will later be considered as second step security. Figure 3.3.4(f2) shows the confirmation message if voter successfully verified their identity.
Figure 3.3.4 (f2): Verification Confirmation
As soon as voter done with the voter registration another alpha numeric password will be sent to their email address. The figure 3.3.4 (f3) is the interface of voter registration form.
Figure 3.3.4 (f3): Voter Registration Form Interface
This second password will later be considered as a third step verification during online voting. Figure 3.3.4 (f4) is the interface of sending second security code in voter email address which will alter be considered as final step security code during online voting.
Figure3.3.4 (f4): Second Security Code in email address
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g) Online Voting: Through electronic voting sites voter will be able to give vote. Before giving vote through the sites voter to verify themselves with three step security. At first, voter has to give the first security code that they have received during basic information registration. Figure 3.3.4(g1, g2, g3) shows the interface of verification before giving vote electronically
Figure 3.4.4 (g1) Verification before online voting Figure 3.4.4 (g2) Verification before online voting
Figure 3.4.4 (g3) Verification before online voting
Then, voter have to give answer of the security question that they answered during voter registration and at last they will answer the final security code that they received after the voter registration form. If they successfully crossed the entire security step voter will be eligible to give vote. To prevent fake vote or multiple vote from a single user we have used voter national id number as a primary key. Figure 3.3.4(g4) is depicting the online voting form where voter will chose the party and the respective nominee name from the party.
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Figure 3.3.4 (g4) online voting form Additional Features
h) Voter Information: The additional feature part is open for general people of the county. They can check out the voter information through inserting the voter national id card number. Figure 3.3.4(h1) is the inter face of enquiring information of a voter.
Figure 3.3.4 (h1) Voter Enquiry Interface After entering the voter national ID card number if admin press submit button they will get information about the voter. Figure 3.3.4 (h2) is showing the retrieval process of voter information through the proposed model.
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Figure 3.3.4 (h2) Voter registration.
i) Nominee Information: The site also allows its user to check the nominee background before giving vote. In order to check nominee information user have to particularly insert the constituency name from which they can check the specific nominee information. Figure 3.3.4 (i1) is showing the retrieval process of nominee information through the proposed model.
3.3.4 (i1) Nomination Form Query
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Figure 3.3.4 is the interface of nominee information
Figure 3.3.4 (i2) Nomination Form Interface
j) Result Checking: The database is designed in a way that every time when a voter gives vote it will add up that with the previous one. Voter can check the result right after he gave the vote. As a result, voter does not have to depend on print and electronic media to get the result. The system is going to be used mainly by admin and the voter of the country. Both have the respective duties in terms of successfully conducting the voting. Figure 3.3.4 (j) is the interface for demonstrating the complete voting result of the election.
Figure 3.3.4 (j) Voting Result Interface
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CHAPTER 4 SYSTEM IMPLEMETATION The developer of E – Voting system is planning to implement on elections of the Student Government Body (SG) of the Asian University for Women at Chittagong. The voting system at the University follows the same pattern as that of national elections. The system was customized to have each candidate for the positions that were being vied for, i.e., SG President, Vice – President, Secretary and Treasurer. Each voter will be interviewed after he/she had voted to find out their opinion on online voting in general and especially about E – Voting system. After getting feedback from the university we will improve it and apply in the city corporation level election in Bangladesh. Later, we will implement it in the bigger platform like national election in The People‟s Republic of Bangladesh. 4.1
System Installation
Currently we have installed our developed database in the server under the domain of our university. The primary reason of this installation was to develop the security part of the database by sending security code to email which usually requires real domain name. After installation and development, we proceed for testing. 4.2
System Testing
We have used both parallel and sequential testing for our proposed model. During developing the security pages by sending security code to voter‟s email, we tested and modified our system. Besides, there is one interface in our system named “Contact US” where sending mail from user to Election Commission is required. During developing this page, we performed tests several times in multiple desktops parallel way. We had several sequential testing after developing the complete system. 4.3
Maintaining Transaction Properties
Our database transaction maintains all the ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) properties which are described below: Atomicity Atomicity is maintained in our database which allowed either the continuation of any voting related tasks or nothing occurs in case of any failures. Consistency The developed database maintains proper consistency by maintain all the conditions of voting. For example, for giving vote, a voter needs to register three months before. If the voter does not register, he/she will not be able to access to the online voting page. Similarly, before voter 29
registration, the admin need to entry the voter‟s information in the site. Otherwise, the voter will not get access to the registration page. Isolation When multiple voters give vote at the same time, the database will treat each voter‟s entry equally in an isolated manner. In case of two voter‟s voting at the same, either one voter‟s vote will be inserted in the server first or vice versa. Hence, voter‟s entry will not impact each other. Durability In case of power failure or any other types of failures, all the tasks on the site will be preserved in the server so that the voter do not have to start over on their next turn of work. User Manual For the proposed model of electronic voting in Bangladesh, we have preserved a page named “Instruction” in our sites which includes a video instruction. This video will guide the users‟ including voter, nominee, and admin for using our site.
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CHAPTER 5 LIMITATION, CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATION 5.1
Limitation of proposed E-voting model:
Though our proposed model has sufficient scope for mitigating voters‟ expectation and reducing drawbacks of manual electoral system, still there are some limitations remains which have been described below. Not Fully Automated Being a developing country, Bangladesh has voters from different backgrounds including people with high and low literacy and technical skills. For this reason, it is difficult to have for all the voters‟ interest, active engagement, and proper technical usage regarding using our developed electronic voting sites. Besides, there will be people having no hardware equipments such as Desktop, Smart Phones, and so on for the implementation of our database to use it during election. As a result, some of the voters still need to rely on manual ballot paper for voting. Considering all these issues, we did not erase the total existing manual system. Instead, we have developed incorporation platform in our database which can combine both manual and electronic vote given by voters with maintenance of proper security. Since our model is still not replacing the manual system, it requires full automation using further technical strategies. Security Concern Like all the online sites and software, our proposed electronic voting model has the risk of hacking which can make voting result vulnerable to manipulation. Although the proposed system has been developed maintaining three step securities by sending security code to voters‟ email address and asking for security question and answer, it accounts better strategy of security because most of the Bangladeshi voters still do not have internet access and use email service. We tried to deploy our proposed model‟s security by sending security code in voters‟ cell phone. However, it requires the mobile phone operator‟s authoritative permission. Since we had no permission, we planned alternative solution of maintaining security through email. Moreover, all the information of the sites is accessible by one admin or IT administrator for maintaining the sites and election procedure, so there is still security concerns and possibility of manipulating results. Language The proposed model has been deployed using English language, so it requires English language proficiency of users. However, still there is not all the populace with English skills in Bangladesh which may cause some problems in understanding the instructions and contents of the sites. We have planned an alternative solutions of using google translate for our sites. However, because of having less imperfection in google‟s translation from English to Bengali, we changed our plan, so Bengali language requirements in the sites still is not mitigated.
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5.2
Conclusion
Voting is democratic right for every citizen of a nation. A government is responsible for ensuring the voting rights of its citizen through providing a secure and friendly environment to increase the voter engagement in the voting process. However as the voting process raised lots of question in Bangladesh thus an enhanced partially electronic model are proposed. We believe the model will be able to fulfill the requirement as well as satisfy the voter requirement during voting process.
5.3
Recommendation
Even though computerized voting systems have a number of advantages over manual ones still there a few challenges that must be overcome in order to ensure that both voter and administrators benefits . First of all, there is the high initial cost of implementing such a system, as it is typical of all computerized systems. Secondly, there is the challenge of voter education. The voters need to be properly educated and capable enough to use online voting system. In developing countries like Bangladesh, not all voters may be able to enter their voter identification numbers and passwords. A third concern is the voting system security at national level; how the system could be attacked by hackers and fraudsters, including system administrators (who may be in favor of some particular candidates). Finally, electronic voting systems should be allowed to be scrutinized by experts in systems analysis and design, and computer system security. This would be the best way to ensure public confidence in such systems.
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