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Full Project – Design and implementation of mobile voting system in Student Union Government election

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Voting is a process by which a person or a group of people expresses an opinion formally or officially. Although people vote in many situations (such as when students elect class officers at school), voting usually refers to the act of citizens choosing candidates for public office or deciding on public issues and laws.

Long ago, the voting system of Lagos State University Student Union (LASUSU) is based on traditional paper ballots. Polling booth will be made available for each faculty in the school where student of each department of that faculty can cast their vote. Members of inaugurated electoral committee will be present at each polling booth to supervise and coordinate the voting process.

The materials present at each polling booth, are empty ballot boxes where voter will cast their vote, a ballot paper which contains all the candidates name, pictures and empty box drawn besides each of them where voter will tick to indicate their choice and a marker to change voters status by marking the thumb of their finger. The voting process is in this wise, all voters are to visit the polling booth of the faculty where there department belongs to.

The inaugurated electoral committees present at the polling booth are to coordinate voters. Firstly, they have to check the eligibility of voter by prompting him/her to provide his/her school identity card. Secondly, they have to check the thumb of the voter’s finger if there is ink there to know the voting status of the voter so to know if he/she can proceed. If the voter failed to pass all these checks he/she will not be allowed to go further else he/she can advance to go and pick a ballot paper which contains all the candidates names, pictures and empty square box where he/she will tick (the voter will tick only inside the empty box beside the choice of his/her candidate name/picture) any ticking linking two empty boxes or unclear ticking will be counted as invalid vote.

At the end of the voting process, the ballot papers for each candidate is counted by electoral committee member immediately at each polling booth(each faculty) and the winner at each polling booth will be announced immediately after the counts. Then the ballot boxes at each polling booth will be transported to electoral committee office. At the electoral committee office result at each polling booth is confirmed and the total counting will be held and then the winner of the election will be determined.

The electoral committee will then officially report the result of election to the school management and also to the public (students and staffs). Due to the development in technology in the last Lagos University Student Union Election the use of ballot paper and ballot boxes has been eliminated and substituted with a few computer laptops system with internet connection at each polling booth with an installed voting application via internet.

Technology has always influenced and shaped the ways election are held (held, 2006). The rapid advancement in information and communications technologies has given rise to new applications that were impossible just few years ago. Mobile voting is defined as a voting method where the voter’s intention is expressed or collected by mobile electronic means. It is a form e-voting. The features of mobile phones are the set of capabilities, services and applications that they offer to their users, of which is Short Message Service (SMS).

Short Message Service (SMS) is a service for sending short messages of up to 160 characters to mobile devices, including cell phones, smart phones and PDA etc SMS is similar to paging. SMS messages are transmitted within the same cell or to anyone with roaming service capability. They can also be sent to digital phones in a number of other ways, including: From one digital phone to another, From Web-based applications within a Web browser, from instant messaging clients like ICQ, From VoIP applications like Skype, from some unified communications applications etc.

BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION

Student on campus has the dream to achieve good academic success and they understand quite well that this will be possible on how they manage their time. Majority of the student will find it difficult to give away some of their time to visit the polling booth, waiting on queue to cast their vote during the Lagos State University Student Election and majority of them will prefer not to involve themselves in the election.

The paper proposed by Suwamaru (2014) mentioned “that the use of mobile phones as cost effective and secure voting medium through the use of short message service”. With the use of mobile phones at election it is glaring that the use of ballot papers, ballot boxes etc. will be eliminated and not only that the number of workers needed will dramatically reduce therefore increasing cost effectiveness. It is also secure as it has been stated by him in the sense that voters can now vote from his/her privacy. Mobile phone offers student opportunity to vote from the privacy of their hostels without fear of being harassed.

Student with disabilities will also find it difficult to go through the stress of leaving their hostel to the polling booth. Report and experience of harassments during the Lagos state university election.

RESEARCH PROBLEM

Many of the students are under pressure with their time and some of them find it difficult to manage their time. They need their time to cover up for their lectures, prepare for next class, test and examinations, due to this reason majority of the student will see their participation in the LASUSU election as not urgent and also not important.

The research problems are:

Student with some disability who would have loved to participate in the LASUSU election will find it very difficult to cast their vote.
Student who were unable to visit the polling booth for some reasons will decrease turn-up of voters during the election

1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Is remote e-voting better e-voting?
What improvement in remote e-voting gives it a better chance than e-voting?
What are the obstacles that can discourage students from visiting the polling booth during election?

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

The aim and objectives are to:

Increase student turn-up during the LASUSU election.
Give student ability to vote anywhere and anytime within the range of the election time.
Eradicate queuing, violence on the LASUSU Election Day.
Make voting easier for student.
Enable student with some disabilities to participate in the election process.
Make voting fun and interesting.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The voter will interact with the database through the online of his/her mobile phone.

During the Election Day, registered student will receive a text message containing a secret code from the database server.

The secret code will be required when the voter is sending his/her votes for validation purpose. After the voters has sent his/her vote to the database server. The database server will send a confirmation message to voter that their vote has been received and counted or not eligible if the particular student has voted before.

At the end of the Election Day the result of the election and the winner will be sent to student through the SMS.

1.6 SCOPE OF STUDY

Introduction to mobile voting using SMS as a tool during the LASUSU election.
The limitation of this research work is the absent of encryption and description algorithm to safeguard the vote send through SMS from intruders trying to manipulate the vote.
It is within the LAGOS STATE UNIVERSITY.

1.7 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

After the completion and implementation of this project work, LASU students will no longer need to leave their hostels, class, library, cafeteria, programs, and other important places in order to cast their vote. All they have to do is to send their vote through SMS technology from their phone.

Since most of the LASU students find pleasures in using SMS to send their vote for their favorite idols, Artist, singer etc. in TV programs like MTN project fame, IDOL, XFACTOR, TALENT HUNT etc. This research work will give room for LASU student to have fun and pleasure during the LASUSU election.

With the implementation of this project work, student is totally saved from the harassment commonly experienced at the polling sites.

1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS

GSM- GLOBAL SYSTEM FOR MOBILE COMMUNICATION

SMS- SHORT MESSAGE SERVICE

UID- UNIQUE IDENTIFICATION

MN- MATRICULATION NUMBER

LASUSU – LAGOS STATE UNIVERSITY STUDENT UNION

SIM – SUBSCRIBER IDENTITY MODULE

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