OUTLINE CAMPUS VOTING SYSTEM FOR STUDENT UNION GOVERNMENT (SUG) NNAMDI AZIKIWE UNIVERSITY AWKA

ABSTRACT
The study is basically to examine online voting system in Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka campus voting system for student union Government (SUG) as an improvement on the traditional paper voting. Worried by the frequent and debilitating incidences of electoral fraud and disenfranchisement of voters for unsubstantiated reasons, the study tended to investigate whether introduction of online voting can ensure credible voting process in Nigeria and hence, democracy. Hagen Martin theory of e-democracy was adopted as theoretical framework. Hagen construes e-democracy as a strategic tool to strengthen democratic practices using the Information and Computer Technology (ICT).The Project Work is an attempt which made use of the popular Structured System Analysis and Design Methodology (SSADM) and personal interviews to elicit information from respondents and/or come up with a unique functional Online voting platform. The secondary data were collected from journals, textbooks, internet materials and review of previous research reports on related topics. It is my finding among others that online-voting will reduce incidences of election fraud especially in the areas of voting and counting of votes, and also the physically challenged qualified voters and citizens living and working abroad will have opportunity to cast their votes. The study concludes that Nigeria must cash in on flourishing ICT in order to fight endemic electoral irregularities in Nigeria through firm belief in, and avowed adoption of online voting system. The study recommended among others, institutionalization of legal frameworks and structures that will formidably support the practice of online voting in Nigeria.

1.1 Background of the Study
One basic feature of democracy that cuts across all races istheact ofvoting. Democracy thus encourages individual freedomaccording to theruleof law, so that people may behaveand expressthemselves astheychoose. This not only gives people a chance tochoose their leaders, butalsoto freelyexpress their viewson issues. In response to the1948 Universal Declarationof Human Rights which puts importance on thenecessity offreeelections,nations aim at new and improved votingprocedures which are of relevanceto elections in the 21stcentury (Salomonsen, 2005).
Voting is a method by which groups of people make decisions. Thesedecisions could be political, social or public. Voting can also be used tochoose between difficult plans of actions or to decide who is best eligible tobe awarded a prize. Voting can thus be defined as a process that allows agroup of individuals to choose between a number of options.Most votingsystems are based on the concept of majority rule or plurality. For example,in an election, a candidate with a plurality receives more votes than anyother candidate, but does not necessarily receive the majority of the totalvotes cast.With the passage of time,voting, which was mainly manual, hasbeen influenced byInformation Technology, with debates arising about therelevance or not, of computerized/online voting (Shamos, 2004; Cranor,2011). Nevertheless, it is impossible tocompletely rule out the need fortechnology and electronicvoting, with the growing number of eligiblevoters andmanual ballot papers involved (Hunter, 2001). Smith andClark(2005) indicate thatelectronic voting is the nextlogical step in applyingonline information-gathering andretrieval technologies to e-government.The choice of this project report topic evolvedbased on this theory. Theproject is todevelop an Online Voting System (OVS) based oncurrentvoting procedures in Nigeria.

As it appears, information technology has become a tool for politicsthus making “Electronic Republic” possible. Electronic Republic is allabout e-government whichsimply means according to United NationsGlobal E-Government ReadinessReport2004 as cited in Akpan-Obong&Alozie(2016,p.15), a “programmatic” tool through which socio-economicand environmental services are rendered to the population while alsofostering activeparticipationand social inclusion. Operation of publicadministration has been digitalized to the extent that so many things can beachieved precisely, correctly and within a short while. Democratic politics,especially the area of election is a strong determinant of politicaldevelopment of a state. It is in the quest to achieve democratic governmentand good governance that e-voting is introduced as a credible alternative tothe traditional paper voting system. The aim of e-voting is to afford thecitizens of the country the opportunity to participate in the voting processfrom where ever they are. Online voting or E-voting is an electronic meansof handling electoral matters which includevoting, transmission andcounting of ballots. It refers to voting using electronic means to either aid ortake care of the chores of casting and counting votes. It can also involvetransmission of ballots and votes via telephone, private computer network, orthe internet (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic _voting). E–votingis one of the most important aspects of e-democracy as its introduction canaccommodatethe political and democratic interests of citizens who are eitherphysically challenged or are outside the shores of Nigeria.
“The first use of Internet voting for political election took place inthe United States of America in 2000, with more countries subsequentlybeginning to conduct trials of and/or use Internet voting” (Pran&Merloe, 2007).These countries are:-“Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada,Estonia, the European Union, France,Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, theNetherlands, Norway, Peru, Romania, Switzerland, the United Kingdom,Venezuela, and the Philippines”.Examples of how some of these countries practice online voting are narratedbelow for EstoniaandArizona (USA):

1. Each Estonian citizen possesses an electronic chip-enabled national IDcard which allowshim/her to vote over the Internet. The ID card is insertedinto a card reader which is connected to a computer. Once his/her identity isverified (using the electronic ID card as a sort of digital signature) he/she canthen cast his/her vote viathe Internet.
2. Arizona made transitional moves towards online voting. Eachregistereddemocrat received a personal identification number (PIN) in themail. These citizens had the option to either cast ballots at a designatedlocation or over the Internet at the comfort of their own home. Voters votingover theInternet were required to insert their PIN and answer two personalquestions. Once all the information is verified, they have the voting options.
There are basically, two main types of online voting:
a. Online voting which is physically supervised by representatives ofgovernmental or independent electoral authorities (e.g. electronic votingmachines located at polling stations).
b. Remote online voting where voting is performed within the voter’ssoleinfluence, and is not physically supervised by representatives ofgovernmental authorities (e.g. voting from one’s personal computer,mobile phone, television via theInternet).

This work focuses on item (b) above. The question now is, “How canonemake use of mobile phones and PCs to vote, and vote credibly?” This iswhat this work succinctly explained in the chapters that follow.