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PROJECT TOPIC AND MATERIAL ON ONLINE VOTING SYSTEM IN KENYA
The Project File Details
- Name: ONLINE VOTING SYSTEM IN KENYA
- Type: PDF and MS Word (DOC)
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- Length: [38] Pages
ABSTRACT
The word “vote” means to choose from a list, to elect or to determine. The main goal of voting
(in a scenario involving the citizens of a given country) is to come up with leaders of the
people‟s choice.
Most countries, Kenya not an exception have problems when it comes to voting. Some of the
problems involved include ridging votes during election, insecure or inaccessible polling
stations, inadequate polling materials and also inexperienced personnel.
This online voting/polling system seeks to address the above issues. It should be noted that with
this system in place, the users, citizens in this case shall be given ample time during the voting
period. They shall also be trained on how to vote online before the election time.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Declaration …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. i
APPROVAL ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… ii
DEDICATION ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… iv
ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. vii
DEFINITION OF TERMS ………………………………………………………………………………………………………… viii
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY …………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ix
1.0 CHAPTER ONE …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 1
1.1 INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 1
1.1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY …………………………………………………………………………………………… 1
1.2 Problem definition ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 4
1.3 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 4
1.4 Objectives of the project ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 5
1.5 Project justification …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 5
1.6 SCOPE OF STUDY ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 6
1.7 LIMITATION OF STUDY ………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 6
2.0 CHAPTER TWO ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 7
2.1 Literature Review ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 7
2.1.1 THE SECURITY ISSUES OF ONLINE VOTING ………………………………………………………………. 9
3.0 CHAPTER THREE ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 11
3.1 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ………………………………………………………………………………………… 11
3.1.1 System Study ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 11
3.1.1.1 Description of the Existing Voter Registration System …………………………………………………….. 11
3.1.1.2 Problems with the Existing Voter Registration System …………………………………………………….. 12
3.1.2 System Implementation Technologies ………………………………………………………………………………. 13
3.1.2.1 SOFTWARE ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 13
3.1.2.2 HARDWARE …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 14
3.2 SYSTEM DESIGN …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 14
3.2.1 THE LOGIN FLOWCHART…………………………………………………………………………………………… 14
3.2.2 DATABASE DESIGN ……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 19
vi
Table structure for table registrationdetails ……………………………………………………………………………….. 19
Table structure for table vote …………………………………………………………………………………………………… 20
4.0 CHAPTER FOUR ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 21
4.1 SYSTEM SPECIFICATION AND DESIGN ……………………………………………………………………….. 21
4.1.1 Specifications …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 21
4.1.1.1 User Requirements for the Proposed System …………………………………………………………………… 21
4.1.2 REQUIREMENT SPECIFICATION ……………………………………………………………………………….. 21
4.1.3 Functional Requirements ………………………………………………………………………………………………… 21
4.2 SYSTEM LOGIN …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 22
5.0 CHAPTER FIVE ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 23
5.1 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SYSTEM …………………………………………………………………………… 23
5.1.1 Form input and Reports Design ……………………………………………………………………………………….. 23
5.1.2 The login form ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 23
5.1.3 The voter registration form ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 24
5.2 System Modules and Components ………………………………………………………………………………………. 25
5.2.1 Shortcomings with the System …………………………………………………………………………………………. 25
5.3 Testing and validation ……………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 25
6.0 CHAPER SIX …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 26
6.1 CONCLUSION ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 26
6.2 RECOMMENDATIONS …………………………………………………………………………………………………… 26
APPENDIX ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 27
PROJECT SCHEDULE ………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 27
PROJECT BUDGET ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 28
REFERENCES …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 29
CHAPTER ONE
1.1 INTRODUCTION
1.1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY
The republic of Kenya comprises of eight (8) provinces now forty-seven counties. The country is
located in East Africa and shares land borders with the Republics of Somalia in the East, Uganda
in the West, Tanzania in the South and Ethiopia and Sudan (now South Sudan) in the North. The
three largest and most influential ethnic groups in Kenya are the kikuyu, Luhya, and Kalenjins.
In terms of religion Kenya is roughly split into 80% Christians while the rest are Muslims.
In Kenya, general elections are carried out every after five years where a head of state the
President and The National Assembly representatives are elected. They are elected by the people.
The national Assembly has about 220 members representing respective constituencies.
In the Local Governments they have the chairman and the Counselor. The counselors are all
elected by the people of the state in the respective wards.
That is to say, in any given general elections, Kenyans vote for the president, the members of the
National Assembly and the counselors.
Most African Electoral bodies IEBC not an exception right from their inception to date, even
with latest advancements in technology, still use a primitive paper based methods during voting;
this system is characterized by manual form filling to chose leaders and transfer of the
information from manual data capture forms to computerized datasheets, this has led to an
excessive number of mistakes making their way into the final vote counts hence leading to
confusion at the time of announcing the results. The main advantage of paper-based systems is
that ballot papers are easily human auditable. The disadvantages outweigh the advantages for
instance the need to print ballot papers is a slow, expensive, inflexible, environmentally hostile
process, visual impairments, or literacy limitations and also last minute changes to the voter
register are difficult to accommodate among others.
2
Over the last few years, there have been a number of election observers who have suggested
electoral organizations should introduce electronic voting at State and Local Government
election processes. A general observation is that as more business is done using electronic
mediums, it should not be difficult to carry out voting using electronic equipment rather than
turning up at the polling place on voting day to use paper and pen. The Online Voting System
(OVS) under implementation mainly addresses the voting phase. Electronic voting using the
OVS should be cheaper than the present paper based arrangement of Kenyan Electoral
Commission (IEBC). The phenomenal use of the Internet as a vehicle for improving
communication, access to information and electronic commerce has led to the claim that the
Internet could be used as either a replacement to attendance voting or as an additional voting
option.
Throughout history, election fraud has occurred in many electoral processes from which
experience shows that the manual voting process is a major source of such vices and violence in
many democratic countries, a case in point is the Kenyan Electoral Commission (IEBC) that has
on several occasions failed to update the Kenyan national voters‟ register in time before the
voting date. For instance, the register that was used for the Multi-Party elections in 1992 was
used for the 1997 Presidential and Parliamentary elections, the 2002 National elections, 2005
referendum and 2007 Presidential Elections which led to disputation. This did not prevent
unregistered voters from getting voters‟ cards thus making rigging easier and undermining the
credibility of elections. The mechanism leading to fraud is manifested in registration places by
corrupt officials on local commissions who are in a position to issue voter registration data
capture forms to illegitimate individuals, stuff ballot boxes, invalidate registration for opposition
voters or even coerce voters. Domestic and international observers reported serious irregularities
in the Kenyan elections in December 2007; they observed that across the country, election
officers denied possibly hundreds or thousands of registered voters the right to vote because they
were allegedly not on the Voters‟ register. This is evidently a result of poor techniques applied in
registration, updating and displaying of voters‟ register by the IEBC and therefore there is need
to further fine tune both the registering and voting process to minimize incidences of “missing
names” on the registers and canvassing of votes during voting.
3
The Online voting system (OVS) also known as e-voting is a term encompassing several
different types of voting embracing both electronic means of counting votes. Electronic voting
technology can include punched cards, optical scan voting systems and specialized voting kiosks
(including self contained direct-recording electronic voting systems or DRE). It can also involve
transmission of ballots and votes via telephones, private computer networks, or the internet.
Online voting is an electronic way of choosing leaders via a web driven application. The
advantage of online voting over the common “queue method” is that the voters have the choice
of voting at their own free time and there is reduced congestion. It also minimizes on errors of
vote counting. The individual votes are submitted in a database which can be queried to find out
who of the aspirants for a given post has the highest number of votes.
This system is geared towards increasing the voting percentage in Kenya since it has been noted
that with the old voting method {the Queue System}, the voter turnout has been a wanting case.
With system in place also, if high security is applied, cases of false votes shall be reduced.
With the “ONLINE VOTING SYSTEM”, a voter can use his\her voting right online without any
difficulty. He\She has to register as a voter first before being authorized to vote. The registration
should be done prior to the voting date to enable data update in the database.
However, not just anybody can vote. For one to participate in the elections, he/she must have the
requirements. For instance, he/she must be a registered citizen i.e. must be 18 and above years
old. As already stated, the project „Online Voting’ provides means for fast and convenient voting
and access to this system is limited only to registered voters.
This project done by Mayinje Nandasaba Wilson, a student at Masinde Muliro University of
Science and Technology is geared towards addressing problems encompassing manual voting
systems that have been in place ever since independence.
4
Internet voting systems are appealing for several reasons which include; People are getting more
used to work with computers to do all sorts of things, namely sensitive operations such as
shopping and home banking and they allow people to vote far from where they usually live,
helping to reduce absenteeism rate.
1.2 Problem definition
The voting/polling process by registered voters in Kenya is very cumbersome. So many cases of
missing data in the voter registration files have been reported. There are also scenarios where
unregistered voters flock in the polling centers as “Dead Voters” to participate in the voting
process. Even after voting, malicious clerks and officers-in-charge of a polling station end up
playing with the results figures. This results in the release of wrong results leading to cases of
post election violence such as the one that happened in early 2008 in Kenya.
Such cases can be solved by insisting on voters exercising that task online using the OVSKENYA.
The voters can also vote from anywhere around the globe, they don‟t need to travel
back to Kenya during election time in case they are abroad.
1.3 SIGNIFICANCEOF STUDY
The main purposes of OVS include:
Provision of improved voting services to the voters through fast, timely and
convenient voting.
Reduction of the costs incurred by the Kenyan Electoral Commission during
voting time in paying the very many clerks employed for the sake of the success
of the manual system.
Check to ensure that the members who are registered are the only ones to vote.
Cases of “Dead People” voting are also minimized.
Online voting system (OVS) will require being very precise or cost cutting to
produce an effective election management system.
5
Therefore crucial points that this (OVS) emphasizes on are listed below.
i. Require less number of staff during the election.
ii. This system is a lot easier to independently moderate the elections and
subsequently reinforce its transparency and fairness.
iii. Less capital, less effort, and less labor intensive, as the primary cost and effort
will focus primarily on creating, managing, and running a secure online portal.
iv. Increased number of voters as individual will find it easier and more convenient
to vote, especially those abroad.
1.4 Objectives of the project
The specific objectives of the project include:
Reviewing the existing/current voting process or approach in Kenya;
Coming up with an automated voting system in Kenya;
Implementing a an automated/online voting system;
Validating the system to ensure that only legible voters are allowed to vote.
1.5 Project justification
The ONLINE VOTING SYSTEM-KENYA shall reduce the time spend making long queues at
the polling stations during voting. 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. 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. 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.
6
1.6 SCOPE OF STUDY
It is focused on studying the existing system of voting in Kenya and to make sure that the
peoples vote is counts, for fairness in the elective positions. This is also will produce:
Less effort and less labor intensive, as the primary cost and focus primary on creating,
managing, and running a secure web voting portal.
Increasing number of voters as individuals will find it easier and more convenient to
vote, especially those abroad.
1.7 LIMITATION OF STUDY
Time factor was the greatest barrier to the successful completion of this exercise since it had to
be done within the semester. I also had financial constraints since all the activities involved were
self-sponsored.
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