University of Southeastern
Project e-VOTE
Introduction
Voting system allows voters to choose between options, often in an election where candidates are selected for public office. Voting can be also used to award prizes, to select between different plans of action, or by a computer program to find a solution to a problem. Voting can be contrasted with consensus decision making and hierarchical or authoritarian systems.
Electronic voting systems for electorates have been in use since the 1960s. It may offer advantages compared to other voting techniques. An electronic voting system can be involved in any one of a number of steps in the setup, distributing, voting, collecting, and counting of ballots, and thus may or may not introduce advantages into any of these steps.
Unlike before that people were manually counting and requires a physical ballot that visually represents voter intent and the physical ballots are read and interpreted; then results are individually tabulated. Today, Electronic voting (also known as e-voting) is a term encompassing several different types of voting, embracing both electronic means of casting a vote and electronic means of counting votes.
Problem Statement
During elections conducted within the university there are issues and problems that need to be addressed. The following are the issues and problems of election:
1. Large cost of manual elections
Because it needs many people to conduct an election, it means that it needed large cost for the food of the people in charge and for the school supplies.
2. Time consuming manual election
The ballots are read and interpreted manually and then results are individually tabulated, that would result to a delay in declaring the winners.
3. Election fraud
Since it would need a long time for canvassing the vote’s cast it will have a chance to cheat.
The issues stated above affects all the students in the
To solve this problem we propose a simple Automated Election System that involves a reliable election procedure, rapid generation of online election and fast and secure canvassing of votes.
The first interface is the login page where the students or the users will validate if he/she is an enrolled student of the school. The interface will be comprised of fields where the user can enter his/her name and ID number. When the users have entered the system, voting system allows voters to choose between options, the user can now vote and then the votes will automatically be counted by the system. The user may also vote through mobile devices, and use a unique format so that the system will know if the user is currently enrolled and a valid voter. If the system accepts the user input then, eventually it will count his votes. The system will send back a confirmation message to the user to confirm if he has voted successfully.
When the voting time is over, the system will generate a statistic result showing the number of votes for each candidate.
Figure 1.1
Until today, people were manually counting and require a physical ballot that visually represents voter intent and the physical ballots are read and interpreted; then results are individually tabulated. As you can see in the Figure 1.1, the students will go in their respective poll precinct. When voting time is over the ballots will be collected for casting of votes. The day after, declaring of candidate who won.
Economical Analysis
| COST | BENEFITS |
(Pay check for the developers)
(Installation / deployment cost, maintenance cost, internet connection cost, and other operation costs)
(Desktop/laptop, mobile devices, servers and other equipment cost) |
(An automated election system that is web based and mobile application) · The system will be more accessible to the student
· It also minimizes election fraud
existing systems and databases · It could be further develop to cater other functions
|
We believe that this system is economically feasible. The benefits weigh more than the cost thus, suggesting this system is economically feasible. We also believe that a university with this size is able to fund such developments considering the gains the university could have.
Budget Analysis
Below are estimates of the cost of current manual election:
Cost of manual election
| DESCRIPTION | COST |
| Comelec | 20,000 php |
| Academic Organization (35) | 17,500 php |
| ULCM | 5,000 php |
| CCO | 1,000 php |
Below are estimates of the cost of proposed automated election:
Cost of E-Vote
| DESCRIPTION | COST |
| System Development | 20,000 php |
| Maintenance | 500 php /month |
A fully developed E-VOTE system would amount to 20,000 on the first year then 6,000 on preceding years. We believe that it is cost effective considering the benefits of this system give.
Risk Analysis
This system offers features such as simultaneous online elections as it aims to cater more than one election at a time. It features a customizable election page where the administrator may choose to generate a different election page depending on the demand of the organization. It also features an automated storage system that is more efficient in terms of capacity and data security. It features an automated counting of votes thus consumes less time during canvassing. The development of this system is a move that tries to solve the problems faced during elections conducted within the university such as the large cost of manual elections and election fraud. If well develop this system may be an inspiration to other organizations that conducts elections. The first part is the manual system, which involves accepting of candidacy. The second part is the automated system, which involves online casting of votes, automated counting of votes, data storage and also a part of data process. This system caters to a university specifically
Benefits
Project eVOTE provides the following benefits:
- It minimizes the cost of an election.
- It minimizes the time needed for canvassing the vote’s cast.
- Election procedure is automated thus eliminates or minimizes election fraud and cheating.
- It could cater to any election within the University.
- It can be integrated with other existing systems and databases.
- It has a concept of green computing as it minimizes the use of paper materials.
- It may be developed further to cater future problems concerning elections.
Features
Project eVOTE has the following features:
- It could and efficiently generate an online election.
- It could generate customized online election depending on the situation.
- It could cater to a number of elections at the same time.
- A picture of a candidate is included for better recognition.
- It could store previous results through its database that could be used in the future studies.
- It is targeted to have voting stations on key positions within the university to make the system accessible to all possible users.
- It has a user- friendly graphical user interfaces and easy to use functions.
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