Mobile cum web based voting system
Published: 2012
Author(s) Name: Shailee Kumar, Reshma Kapadnis, Gaurav Barokar, Rohit Patil
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Abstract
Elections allow the populace to choose their representatives and express their
preferences for how they will be governed. Naturally, the integrity of the election process
is fundamental to the integrity of democracy itself. The election system must be
sufficiently robust to withstand a variety of fraudulent behaviors and must be sufficiently
transparent and comprehensible that voters and candidates can accept the results of an
election. Unsurprisingly, history is littered with examples of elections being manipulated
in order to influence their outcome.
The design of a “good” voting system, whether electronic or using traditional paper
ballots or mechanical devices must satisfy a number of sometimes competing criteria. The
anonymity of a voter’s ballot must be preserved, both to guarantee the voter’s safety
when voting against a malevolent candidate, and to guarantee that voters have no
evidence that proves which candidates received their votes. The existence of such
evidence would allow votes to be purchased by a candidate.
The voting system must also be tamper-resistant to thwart a wide range of attacks,
including ballot stuffing by voters and incorrect tallying by insiders. Another factor is the
importance of human factors. A voting system must be comprehensible to and usable by
the entire voting population, regardless of age, infirmity, or disability. Providing
accessibility to such a diverse population is an important engineering problem and one
where, if other security is done well, electronic voting could be a great improvement over
current paper systems. Flaws in any of these aspects of a voting system, however, can lead
to indecisive or incorrect election results. There have been several studies on using
computer technologies to improve elections. These studies caution against the risks of
moving too quickly to adopt electronic voting machines because of the software
engineering challenges, insider threats, network vulnerabilities, and the challenges of
auditing.
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