BIO-METRIC AUTHENTICATION OF VOTERS AND VOTING PROCESS

BIO-METRIC AUTHENTICATION OF VOTERS AND VOTING PROCESS

ABSTRACT

Traditional methods of election are no longer chosen because to the long period of preparation, fake voting, defective voting, mistakes made in counting the votes, long duration of counting, and high expense of the voting process. To avoid these drawbacks hurting the country’s economy and policies directly, the existing voting method must be converted to an electronic system. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) sought to conduct audits in many constituencies to establish the level of multiple voting and voter impersonation in response to suspicions of widespread voter impersonation (or “election rigging,” as it is usually referred to in Nigeria). This should have been achievable simply comparing fingerprints on voter rolls to fingerprints collected by poll workers. While there was some evidence of repeated votes, the audit results were inconclusive, leaving the question mostly unsolved. The biggest impediment to an effective audit was the poor quality of voter verification performed by polling workers, as well as the poor quality of fingerprint ink.

CHAPITRE ONE

1.0 General Introduction

Previously, electors voted in general and municipal elections using voting papers and voting boxes into which the voting papers were inserted. This strategy reveals certain bad conditions. Some disadvantages of the traditional election system include the inability to determine which party the stamp belongs to, the possibility of placing voting papers in the wrong box, problems with counting the votes, loss of time when there are objections, paper printing, and expenditures for personnel. The secret ballot is a critical tool for ensuring voters’ freedom of choice. As a result, new technologies must be used to make the election system more trustworthy, cost-effective, and efficient.

Electronic voting systems were introduced in several nations, particularly in the United States and Europe, around the beginning of the 1990s as a result of evolving technology, and they have become more trustworthy as technology has improved. Electronic voting is the act of voting in an electronic setting. An electronic election is a technology that allows for speedy counting through electronic voting.

Electronic voting is implemented in certain countries around the world, and studies on it have been conducted (Babu and Padmavathamma, 2006; El-qawasmeh and Owais, 2010).

Hajjar et al., 2006; Folorunso et al., 2005). Electronic voting was utilized in Australia for parliamentary elections in 2001 (Schoen and Faas, 2005), in Austria for student union elections in 2003 (Prosser et al., 2003), in Canada for municipal elections in 2003 (Nakhaie, 2006), and in India for both general and local elections in 2003 (Gorla, 2009). As a result of recent advancements in information technology, public opinion polls and national general elections will be conducted more quickly and effectively in an electronic environment.

With the rapid advancement of technology, security issues have arisen. Aside from constructing the system, there are several studies and novel approaches for addressing the security issues of the emerging system. Individual passwords are being utilized to meet security needs as a result of growing technologies. Over time, new methods and card technologies are created to fix security gaps caused by card burglary or forgetting particular passwords. ID cards and Private Identification Numbers (PIN) are becoming increasingly popular in card technologies (Sonkamble et al., 2010; Alkan and Bulut, 2010). Due to the temporal constraints of this technology, studies on security and identification activities based on physical traits are being conducted.

Biometric systems are methods for identifying persons based on their bodily traits. Fingerprint, face, hand shape, retina, iris, and voice track methods are examples of biometric approaches (Sonkamble et al., 2010; Kadry and Smaili, 2010; Razzak et al., 2010). In the developed systems, these strategies can be employed separately or combined.

Fingerprint recognition methods and ID systems are often used in biometric approaches because their applications are simple and low-cost (Maltoni et al., 2009). Fingerprint recognition systems are the most popular approach because everyone’s fingerprints are unique, cannot be easily changed, and the possibility of losing, forgetting, or stealing it is nil. Furthermore, each finger has individual properties because each person’s fingerprints are unique (Altun et al., 2008).

As a result, the fingerprint approach is generally utilized alone or in conjunction with other biometric methods to provide system security. The fingerprint approach is also used to identify online applications.

Instead of typical election systems, this study focuses on biometric authentication techniques. A biometric-based election system has been created to address the shortcomings of the current method.

1.1 The Study’s Background

Voting theory was originally established in the 18th century, and many proposals have been made since then to use electronic technologies to improve elections (Sobia, Ummer, Ayesha, Usman, and Hassan, 2011). Election is an essential feature of democracy. Democracy encourages individual freedom with regard to the rule of law, so that people can express their opinions however they want, giving people the opportunity to choose their leaders and freely express their feelings on issues. Because of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, which emphasizes the importance of compelling circumstances of free elections, governments have concentrated on enhanced and new voting methods that are relevant to election processes in the twenty-first century (Salomonsen, 2005).

Election is the process by which people choose their delegates and express their views on how they will be run (Kohno, Rubin, Stubblefield, & Wallach, 2003), (Malkawi, Khasawneh, & Al-Jarrah, 2009), and (Ashok & Ummal, 2011).

Since the return to democratic rule in 1999, the Nigerian election process has been done manually (voting for local and general elections done by electors with ballot papers and ballot boxes in which the papers are placed). The manual voting process has been associated with a number of problems and has always resulted in post-election violence (Yekini, Oyeyinka, Oludipe, & Lawal, 2012).

In the Federal Republic of Nigeria, there are two types of voting systems: manual voting systems (MVS) and electronic voting systems (EVS).

The Manual Voting System (MVS) entails presenting eligible citizens with a list of contestants on a piece of paper called ballot paper, asking them to mark against their favorite contestants and placing the ballot paper in a box called ballot box. This voting system is used in the country for senatorial and governorship election processes. Manual voting systems have some disadvantages, such as the possibility of placing the ballot paper in the incorrect ballot box, problems with votes counting, loss of time when there are some objections, paper printing, and personnel expenditures. For these reasons, it is necessary to use new technologies to make the election system faster, more economical, and more trustworthy, because trust that every vote will be tallied and recorded correctly is the foundation of a genocide.

The Electronic Voting technique (EVS) entails presenting eligible citizens with a list of contestants on a computer, allowing them to vote against their favorite contestants; this voting technique is utilized in the country’s presidential election. The advancement of information and communication technology has enabled a completely computerized election process in which vote counting is done in real time and results are automatically published by the conclusion of the election day (Rubin, 2002).

1.2 Problem Description

With advancements in information and communication technologies, the subject of security has expanded far beyond the use of traditional passwords. This study intended to define the biometric authentication system as an enhanced solution to the Federal Republic of Nigeria’s present voting system. The current approach, on the other hand, is vulnerable to card loss, card failure, and unguaranteed voter presence at the location and time of election. Furthermore, for presidential elections, the present EVS system is employed, however for senate and governorship elections, the manual voting system of ballot paper and ballot box is used.

1.3 Study Aims and Objectives

The goal of this project was to create a Windows program for the design and implementation of a biometrics authentication system for voters and the voting process, complete with an embedded fingerprint for user authentication to the system.

The following are the study’s objectives:

To research the current voting methods used in the country for senate and governorship candidates in the election process.

To create a reliable and secure voting system based on a fingerprint biometric authentication recognition procedure.

To put in place a biometrics system for voters and a voting process in the country for the senatorial election.

1.4 Importance of the Research

The goals of this project are to improve the secrecy, integrity, and voter identification during the voting process, to minimize the time and stress of conducting manual elections (senatorial and governorship), and to provide an equal degree of protection on election day.

1.5 The Study’s Scope

This project is specifically designed for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) election in the Federal Republic of Nigeria to overcome the problem of illegal activities during the election by ensuring that only eligible voters have access to the system, immediately outputting election results, and ensuring that voters have trust in the election process. However, with little alterations, this technique can be adapted to other election systems.

1.6 Research Limitations

Despite its importance, this project has some limitations, including the fact that it is a desktop application, that citizens cannot use it at their leisure but must come to the pull for the election, and that only a fingerprint reader from Digital Persona Inc. can be used for user enrollment and verification in the system.

1.7 Term Definition

EVS stands for electronic voting system.

E-voting stands for Electronic Voting.

INEC stands for the Independent National Electoral Commission.

EVR stands for Electronic Voter Register.

PU stands for Polling Unit.

ICT stands for information and communication technology.

Federal Election Commission (ECIL)

Election systems and software (ES & S)

VVPAT stands for vote verifiable paper audit trails.

PEB stands for Personal Electronic Ballot.

PIN stands for Personal Identification Number.

MBB stands for Mobile Ballot Box.

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