DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF WEB BASED VOTING SYSTEM

By

UBAKA IFECHUKWU JOSHUA

Presented To

Department of Computer Science

ABSTRACT

The project focuses on developing software for a web based voting system which will enable them to register, login with the voters card number, insert card number, count vote by clicking a button, view all registered voters and also give room for editing of errors. The objectives of this is to Conduct free and fair election since voters do not need to come to polling station, Safeguard data and information in the system by creating a relational database, to reduced workload in the process of conducting election, to keep accurate record of votes for future purpose, it will reduce time wasted in announcing election result since, once the period of voting is over, the system will not accept votes again, each voter is eligible to cast vote once the system allows the person to register. The methodology used in this project is Unified Modeling Language. UML is designed to enable users to develop an expressive, ready to use visual modeling language. In addition, it supports high level development concepts such as frameworks, patterns and collaborations. It was implemented using sublime text on a Microsoft windows system using HTML codes, PHP, CSS and MySQL language for the relational database. The result gotten from this project was a web based voting system.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title page

Certification

Dedication

Approval page

Acknowledgement

Table of Contents

Abstract

CHAPTER ONE:

10 Background of study

11 Statement of the problem

12 Objective of study

13 Significance of study

CHAPTER TWO:

20 Introduction

21 Background of study

22 Literature Review

23 Summary

CHAPTER THREE:

30 Introduction

301 Methodology

31 Analysis of the existing system

32 Analysis of the Proposed System

33 Design of the Proposed System

331 Database Design

332 System Architecture

333 Input Design

334 Output Design

CHAPTER FOUR:

40 Introduction

41 Choice of Development Environment

411 The login form

412 The voter registration form

42 Implementation Architecture

43 Software Testing

431 Input specification

432 Output specification

44 Documentation

441 User manual

442 Source code listing

CHAPTER FIVE:

50 Summary

51 Conclusion

52 Recommendation

Reference

Appendix

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

10 INTRODUCTION

Today the Internet has been a fair concept that has profoundly affected our daily lives As with anything new the internet possesses various mysteries The advancement made in technology over the past few years is astounding The computer alone has progressed at a remarkable pace, and updates are continually occurring Online voting system opens the door to all sorts of possibilities for our state (country) voting future One basic feature of democracy that cuts across all kinds of people is the act of election Democracy thus encourages individual freedom according to the rule of law, so that people may behave and express themselves as they choose their leader This not only gives people a chance to choose their leaders, but also to freely express their views on issues

Alvarez RM, Hall, TE and Trechsel, AH Thus, voting is a method by which group of people make decisions These decisions could be political, social or public Voting is also a means of selecting or choosing leaders, it does not apply only to local government, states and federal government of Nigeria but also in different institutions and social organization

For democracy to be sound, it should be free and fair

Over the years, the voting system in Nigeria has been put under a manual system of operation which mostly results to inaccuracy and ineffective election

It is gradually being realized that much faster accurate, effective and efficient system is needed to be adopted Here, on-line system is to be adopted to handle voting

This on-line voting system ensures that each intended voter is checked whether he/she is registered or not, if he/she is not registered, the system refuses him voting Also it checks whether he/she has voted for that particular election This on-line voting system prevents a situation where a particular candidate seizes the voters' cards, and uses them to vote for himself Hence the rigging associated with the manual voting systems has been completely handled The system also takes care of result calculation of each candidate in particular election and the percentage scored in that election This eliminates rigging associated with the calculation and counting of votes

A means of showing the various outputs is also adopted by the system, the output can either be displayed on the screen or a hard copy of it can be produced depending on the choice of the user This prevents intentional and unintentional typographical errors in showing the results of the elections

With an on-line voting, voters can only cast once; it will also afford people who are sick and unable to go to polling stations to cast their vote

11 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The following are the statements of problem:

1 This system will prevent disenfranchising eligible voters

2 It will reduce the action rigging during election process

3 It will eliminate a single voter casting his vote multiple times

4 Inefficient and inaccurate counting of voters by officers concerned

5 Long queues observed at polling stations

6 Illegible voters casting their vote

12 AIM AND OBJECTIVES

The main objective of this study is to develop an online voting system and which will be able to achieve the following:

1 Conduct free and fair election since voters do not need to come to polling station

2 Safeguard data and information in the system by creating a relational database

3 Reduced workload in the process of conducting election

4 Keep accurate record of votes

5 It will reduce time wasted in announcing election result

6 Each voter is eligible to cast vote once

7 Once the period of voting is over, the system will not accept votes again

13 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROBLEM

1 The online voting system shall reduce the time spend making long queues at the polling stations during voting

2 It shall also enable the voters to vote from any part of the globe as explained since this is an online application available on the internet

3 Cases of vote miscounts shall also be solved since at the backend of this system resides a well-developed database using MYSQL that can provide the correct data once it's correctly queried

4 Since the voting process shall be open as early as possible, the voters shall have ample time to decide when and whom to vote for

5 It secures the data from hackers