VOT-EL: Three Tier Secured State-Of-The-Art EVM

Design Using Pragmatic Fingerprint Detection Annexed

With NFC Enabled Voter -ID Card

Anooshmita Das (author) Manash Pratim Dutta (co-author)

Department of Computer Science and Engineering Department of Computer Science and Engineering
National Institute of Technology National Institute of Technology
Arunachal Pradesh, India Arunachal Pradesh, India
[email protected] [email protected]

Subhasish Banerjee(co-author)
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
National Institute of Technology
Arunachal Pradesh, India
[email protected]

AbstractIndia being the largest democracy in the world, Now the voting mechanisms have evolved from leaps and
elections forms the cornerstone of our country. Amongst the bounds of simple hand written ballots to online voting
prominent leaders, a representative is being chosen to run the systems. The proposed design, also have the sui generis
country and to seek and search for the public affairs, pieces of feature of being autonomous during the operational mode,
legislation and constitutional amendments. The onerous task is which helps to diminish and eradicate the issues of hacking
to maintain transparency in the electoral process and shield the
that happened in cases of traditional voting systems and also
integrity of elections to make it equitable and withstand any
fraudulence. Rampage free elections is one of the critical issues has an eagle eye view on the privacy constraint which
in todays state of affairs which is like finding needle in a directly conflicts with the capability to audit the data aptly.
haystack, that needs an eye and lots of money is being spent to
ensure that the elections are fair and unprejudiced. Privacy is In this proposed design, the viability study of the emerging
also important to make elections equitable to prevent voter technology NFC, in conjunction with biometric is done. The
coercion, intimidation and ballot selling. But nowadays it is seen design, suggests the use of a promising technology, i.e. NFC
that, many unwanted forces are indulged in bogus voting and cards for the identification purpose of the voters, which is a
recently also been criticized for election irregularities, that short range radio communication wireless technology, in the
leads to ambiguity between the polling results and the actual
first tier of security level. This technology allows
verdict given by the people. Classical poll-site voting methods
along with many other computer based voting system poise communication between the NFC card and the device
several administrative and logistic challenges in terms of cost, equipped with the reader when they are brought together
voter misinterpretation and tally of votes. This paper proposes within less than five centimeters apart in a very secured and
a new state-of-the-art Electronic Voting Machine design in reliable manner, which ebbed the complicacy and preventing
quest for election legitimacy, to provide an inexpensive solution from the malicious attacks or frauds. NFC is a finely honed
which is based on pragmatic biometric system using fingerprint version of HF-RFID, operating at the frequency of 13.56
detection along with inclusion of Near- Far Communication MHz and transmission of data rate is 424Kbits/sec [1]. Peer-
technology. to-peer communication and auto-coupling are the feature that
sets NFC apart and it also enables slick and intuitive
Key-words: Bio-metric, Electronic Voting Machine,
communication between device and tags. NFC tag store the
Fingerprint, Near-Far Communication.
voters details like name, age, gender and location which are
I. INTRODUCTION used to authenticate, before they cast their votes. The user
places the NFC tag near the device reader, than it scans the
Elections are the fundamental defining characteristics of any
tag and verifies the details with the back-end system. One of
democracy that upholds the very meaning of a system that is
the noteworthy features of NFC is its ingrained guaranteed
being governed by the people expressing their choices or
security, as the transmission of data is initiated by bringing
articulate opinions in the form of voting. The traditional
two devices in proximity range of each other, separating
electoral process vacillates around tallying manually, which
devices over a range limit will terminate the communication.
is time consuming and complicated and more erroneous and
The range of NFC is so short that if any hacker device comes
prone to fraudulency.
in the vicinity, it will be clearly recognized. Once the user is
verified, the person can proceed to the next level of
978-1-4673-6725-7/16/$31.00 2016 IEEE
biometric authentication. To make the system more stringent Application i.e. the first ever mobile technology that
and robust, another layer of security is reinforced through the acknowledged the fingerprint authentication, although still
use of biometric fingerprint identification as every individual believes on biometrics [6][9][15].
has unique fingerprints. Biometrics is the science and
technology that deals with analyzing the biological III. HURDLES OF TRADITIONAL AND EXISTING VOTING
information or data. Biometric logistics operates by SYSTEM
procuring fingerprints from an individual, then decoction of To foster voter enrolment, during 2014 General Elections in
a feature set from the acquired data, and comparing this India, ECI constantly endeavors and motivates to participate
feature set with reference to the template set stored in the by appealing the sense of citizenship. SVEEP campaign has
database[13][14]. Using fingerprint matching is very reliable been started in co-operation with NGOs. The ECI also
and popular biometric technique in personal identification augmented the provision of voting slips and cross-checked
process as it generates solemnity while stressing on building for any malevolent tendencies. Despite of all this efforts,
or cultivating voter confidence. Common challenges during sustaining interest and motivation in a growing populace
capturing of unreadable fingerprints are False Acceptance seems to be a herculean task, especially when voter cynicism
Rates (FAR), where an invalid fingerprint is accepted crawls in. The people criticize ECI for everything from the
because of subterfuge or error and another exception is False code of conduct, to partisanship to inaction after poll
Rejection Ratio (FRR) where a valid fingerprint gets violation. The people want the election to be placid and
rejected. So this should be mediated in order to make it more devoid of any tumult. Due to a result of rampant corruption
accurate. To maintain the transparency of the system, in the in the elections, the people have been raising questioning
third tier of security level -each time a user casts his vote, a eyebrows about it and the general expression has prevailed
tweet will be generated that the specified user has submitted that the democratic system has proved to be a boon only to a
his/her vote and the total no of vote count increases to handful of people having capital. The success of elections
prevent from illegal voting (rigging). The proposed design largely depends on enlightened masses, honest citizens. The
VOT-EL looks into the multiple dimensions to endure the common people relapse into political indolence after the
expectations of the voters for a secured, reliable and elections are over. On Jan 28, 2015, in Chhattisgarh
efficacious voting system. Panchayat polls, 50% of the candidates elected unopposed in
Rebel dominated Bastar. The rebels looted ballot boxes from
II. RELATED WORK around 30 booths. Before in India, conventional voting
India with 834 million registered voters, voting through systems used paper-based ballots for voting, this procedure
electronic means is obligatory. India accomplishes the regrettably allowed coercion, where individuals have to
electoral process using over 0.923 million polling stations queue up to enroll themselves before they cast their votes
along with the EVMs [5] [7].The EVMs which were [2][3]. The traditional voting process was divided into
introduced protruded many computational hurdles and off- different phases
grid challenges such as power constraint, usability and 1) User Authentication: In this part, the person authenticates
access control. Apparently the youth participation is ebbing himself and is verified by the presiding officer at the polling
in elections than other demographic age groups so the site. After verification, the officer provides a ballot paper to
Election Commission needs to advance the EVMs and to set cast the vote.
solutions for all security related threats as new digital 2) Voting: The user casts his vote, puts into the ballot box
technology is hitting the world with thunderbolt speed. It is where all the votes are kept together.
believed that our design will foster youth participation with 3) Vote Tally: As the post poll procedure, the presiding
the e-voting asserting for a democracy to command respect it officer collects the ballot boxes and submits to the center.
must operate in the same way as people are performing Votes are counted and the results are declared.
routine tasks in their lives, and e-voting fits this criteria. 4) Verification: Various cross-checking mechanisms are
Other measures to augment vote count in local government implied in case of frauds.
Gujarat made voting mandatory and are also attempting to 5) Publication of Results: Finally the polling results are
indulge SMS as well as internet based web portal voting [5]. declared after the above steps are completed successfully.
The cognizance of NOTA (None of the above) is an epitome
of innovation that permitted the voters in India the option to As the populace is so high, such a large exercise became
participate while abnegating all candidates (Electoral unwieldy to supervise. This leads to the progression of
Commission of India, 2013) [8] [12] [16]. voting with the introduction of lever machines, punch
cards which protruded new obstacles such as logistics,
A procedure to almost eradicate voter deception through breakdown of device, acquiring technical skills while
malicious tendencies is the reinforcement of biometrics. A discarding transparency [10] [12]. This signaled the advent
study by NCSA (National Cyber Security Alliance) of EVM, to contextualize the challenges and beneficially
revealed that using of biometrics parameters provided more introduce speed, automatic ballot tally, and strained voter
security and reliability as this phrase is indeed used your monitoring, resolve any voting violation. The idea was
body is the new password. Roger hacked the Apple 5S mooted by Chief Election Commissioner in late 1970s in
collaboration with two government com mpanies- ECIL explicit manner, in the diagram beelow the main blocks of the
(Electronics Corporation of India) and BEL (Bharat project is discussed. Followed byy the flowchart of VOT-EL
Electronics Limited). in a nutshell.
IV. ARCHITECTURE OF THE PROPOSED
D SYSTEM

A. Brief Description of the system

Each user will have a NFC voter id card whhich consists of
the tag; all the baseline information like nam me, age, gender,
location will be stored. The NFC cards comee with a unique
number for the identification purpose of eaach voter. The
information is kept discrete by encapsulation pprocess and the
information can be manipulated at the sstarting set up
procedure. The NFC cards are blank at the innitial stage and
have to be initialized to be entered into the baack end system.
Once the card id is held within the vicinity off the controller,
through the use of serial monitor, the data or the baseline
information contained becomes valid. When the user comes
in the proximity range of the NFC reader, it reetrieves the data
from the tag and passes the inform mation to the
microcontroller. If the user is genuine, the idd matches with
the stored data in the database, he will be allow
wed to move to
the next level of authentication, otherwise a m message will be
shown in the display that the person is nott an authorized
user. Only registered users may process furthher to cast their
vote once they have places their card within the vicinity of
the NFC reader. Then the card is acknow wledged by the
reader, it checks for the unique identificattion number is
present in the database, when this is donne the voter is
signaled to move to the next stage.

Once the voter cast his vote, he wont be aallowed to vote FIGURE 1 : BLOCK- DIAGRAM OF THE PROPOSED SYSTEM
again and if multiple votes are tried by the saame person this
will be reported to the screen. The fingerpriint of the voter
will be taken by the scanner and is beinng sent to the
microcontroller. The processed image of thee fingerprint is
transferred to match with the sample tem mplates in the
database. If the persons identity matches, hhe can cast his
vote in real time only once, choosing the caandidate as per
choice and if invalid user, then the buzzer willl be raised and
a message will be displayed as unauthorized uuser.

The option which is entered by the voter is beeing sent to the

server which keeps on updating through internet every
instant. Once voted, it automatically gets inccremented with
respect to the voting. The server retrieves thee data and starts
the validation process. Finally, the in-charrge of election
commission or the authorized admin has the complete
control on the application and is fully-rresponsible for FIGURE 2 : SCHEMATIC SY
YSTEM FLOW DIAGRAM
governing important functionalities. The adm min can ensure
that the elections are conducted in an unprejuudiced and fair
manner. He can search the database to veriffy a person has V. FLOW CHART OF THE
E PROPOSED SYSTEM
not voted under two different names. And aalso the voting
details of a person is available, he can also traack down a vote The flowchart of the procedural steps
s involved in the design
in case of any irregularities. Finally after the vvote submission being described explicitly. It desccribes the control access of
phase is over, the results can be displayed thhrough internet the authentication system for a registered user through
within fraction of time. Considering the aboove points, the different levels. It also show ws the basic level of
design proposal can handle all security relateed issues. In an
authentication, first being the NFC, secoond being the VI. HARDWARE DESCRIPTION
biometrics and third considered under Internett of Things.
A. Description of the system
The different types of subb-unit and how they are
connected is shown below.
a> NFC controller shield
NFC card interact with the NFC controller shield
module by using EM rad dio field. NFC allows two-
way communication bettween the card and the
device, valid for a 13.56 MHz
M frequency.

b> Finger-print module (SM 630)

Fingerprint recognition, the electronic process of
recording, storing, seearching, matching and
recognizing an individuall fingerprint has advanced
substantially due to introd
duction of modules like SM
630. Now-a-days, identiification can be achieved
within fraction of seconds with great
accuracy.SM630 consist of o optic fingerprint sensor,
high performance DSP processor and flash. It
possess features like sellf -proprietary intellectual
features, self adaptive adjustment
a to fingerprints,
high imaging quality , canc be applied to a wider
range of people. It hass excellent tolerance and
correction to deformed an nd poor quality fingerprints
and also low power consumption.

TABLE I. TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION

FEATURES SPECIFICATION

OPERATING VOLTAGE 4.3 V 6 V

RATING VOLTAGE 6.5 V

OPERATING CURRENT <80 mV (Input Voltage 5V)

FINGERPRINT TEMPLATE 768 template

SEARCH TIME <1.5 s

POWERON TIME <200 MS (Time elapse between

system module on to system ready
to execute instructions)

TOLERATED ANGLE OFFSET 45

FLASH MEMORY 64 Kbyte

INTERFACE PROTOCOL Standard Serial Interface (TTL)

COMMUNICATION BAUD 57600bps

RATE
 VII. COMPARATIVE STUDY
Y WITH OTHER SCHEMES
c> Microcontroller
P89V51RD2 is a 40 MHz 8051 microcontroller, 5V
with 32 I/O lines, 9 interrupts with 4 priority levels, FEATURES TRADITIONA EXISTING
E OUR
L PAPER EVM
E SCHEME
1 k on chip RAM, 64k+8k flash, SPI, dual data BASED VO-TEL
pointers, programmable watch dog tiimer (WDT), 5 BALLOT
channel PCA. It has 3 timers/counteers. It supports
12-clock (default) or 6 clock m mode selections Paper and Ballot Embedded
E Real Time
through software or ISP and enhanceed UART. TTL CONTRIVA Boxes System
S Embedded
NCE System
and CMOS- compatible logic levels.
LEVELS OF NONE Supervision
S 3(Three Level)
d> Raspberry Pi SECURITY provided
p
Raspberry Pi 2 Model B has a 40 pin GGPIO header; it Prone to th
hrough use of 1)NFC
has four USB 2.0 ports that can provide better fraudulence and smart
s cards,
2)Bio-Metric
more erroneous PINs
P or
overcurrent behaviour. It has a nicer push micro SD passwords.
p Authentication
version. It includes ARM 11 processoor to ensure the But
B can be 3)Internet-
easily
e tapped of-things(web
speed efficacy. Power consumption is reduced to
or
o hacked based
0.5W to 1W. The audio circuit incorporate a devoted validation)
low noise power supply. It offers more flexibility to
work with then the earlier versions oof it. Python is
the programming language.

PRIVACY
e> 16*2 LCD Display
The LCD display is connected to thee 80C51 micro- USABILITY
controller, and microcontroller providdes the data will (Any
be shown in the display. demographic
age group)

f> Power Supply RELIABILIT

The main components of the regulatedd power supply Y
are 230 V AC mains, transformer, bbridge rectifier
POWER
(diodes), capacitor, voltage regulaator(IC 7805), CONSTRAI
resistors and LEDs. NT

ECONOMIC
Indelible ink Cost
C is too
and papers high
h
required. So
high cost

ENCAPSULA
FIGURE 3 : BLOCK- DIAGRAM OF THE REGULLATED POWER TION
SUPPLY
SPOOFING
g> Piezo Electric Buzzer
DISPLAY Stamps on paper Touch
T screen Web Based
The piezo buzzer generates sound baased on reverse OUTPUT beside the with
w GUI Portal
of piezo-electric effect. The underlyiing principle is preferred in
nterface
the production of pressure or sstrain by the candidate
application of electric potential acrosss a piezoelectric
material. Here, the buzzer is used as aan alert for any
AUDITING The
T tally is
invalid credentials or unauthorised useer. TRAIL Manual The EVM is
done
d in a
digital
d connected to
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