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Cloud Based E-Voting: One Step Ahead For Good Governance In India 1
Department of CSE,MET’S School of Engineering,Mala
1. INTRODUCTION
Cloud computing is a new technology that provides the computing platform for
sharing resources that includes infrastructures, software, data centres, applications, and
business processes. It is a paradigm that focuses on sharing data and computations over a
scalable network of nodes. These nodes include end user, computers, data centers and cloud
services. Cloud computing provides the computer technology via the internet. It enables
users and developers to utilize computing resources that are virtualized. According to
National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA (NIST) “Cloud computing is a model
for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of
configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and
services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or
service provider interaction”. The Cloud computing paradigm is sometimes viewed as the
commercial successor of the academic Grid computing paradigm. Cloud computing is a
new technology that provides the computing platform for sharing resources.Cloud
computing refers to performing computer tasks using services delivered entirely over the
Internet.Cloud computing means storing and accessing data and programs over the Internet
instead of your computer's hard drive.
1.1 GENERAL
Cloud computing as offered by companies such as Amazon is easier to use than the
typical Grid and offers more user rights and tighter security. This has led to much greater
commercial adoption of Cloud computing than of Grid computing. However, unlike a Grid, a
Cloud doesn’t not assist its users with the selection and use of different remote Cloud
sites.Due to commercial interests ,a Cloud provider usually has a proprietary system where a
user creates an image that only runs on the provider’s site. This Represents a significant step
back compared to grid computing. While many cross-site technologies applied in grid
computing such as virtual organization management and single sign-on can quite easily be
adopted by Cloud computing, the configuration and management of user software in the
cloud is significantly different compared to the traditional Grid.In computer networking,
cloud computing is computing that involves a large number of computers connected through
Cloud Based E-Voting: One Step Ahead For Good Governance In India 2
Department of CSE,MET’S School of Engineering,Mala
a communication network such as the Internet, similar to utility computing. In science, cloud
computing is a synonym for distributed computing over a network, and means the ability to
run a program or application on many connected computers at the same time.
Network-based services, which appear to be provided by real server hardware and are
in fact served up by virtual hardware simulated by software running on one or more real
machines, are often called cloud computing. Such virtual servers do not physically exist and
can therefore be moved around and scaled up or down on the fly without affecting the end
user, somewhat like a cloud becoming larger or smaller without being a physical object.
In common usage, the term "the cloud" is essentially a metaphor for the Internet.
Marketers have further popularized the phrase "in the cloud" to refer to software, platforms
and infrastructure that are sold "as a service", i.e. remotely through the Internet. Typically,
the seller has actual energy-consuming servers which host products and services from a
remote location, so end-users don't have to; they can simply log on to the network without
installing anything. The major models of cloud computing service are known as software as a
service, platform as a service, and infrastructure as a service. These cloud services may be
offered in a public, private or hybrid network. Google, Amazon, Oracle Cloud, Salesforce,
Zoho and Microsoft Azure are some well-known cloud vendors.
Services made available to users on demand via the Internet from a cloud computing
provider's servers as opposed to being provided from a company's own on-premises servers.
Cloud services are designed to provide easy, scalable access to applications, resources and
services, and are fully managed by a cloud services provider. A cloud service can
dynamically scale to meet the needs of its users, and because the service provider supplies the
hardware and software necessary for the service, there’s no need for a company to provision
or deploy its own resources or allocate IT staff to manage the service.
The major models of cloud computing service are :
• software as a service,(Saas)
• platform as a service, (Paas)
• infrastructure as a service(Iaas)
Cloud Based E-Voting: One Step Ahead For Good Governance In India 3
Department of CSE,MET’S School of Engineering,Mala
Fig 1.1.1 cloud computing services
IaaS(Infrastructure as a service):
As the name suggests, provides you the computing infrastructure, physical or (quite
often) virtual machines and other resources like virtual-machine disk image library, block and
file-based storage, firewalls, load balancers, IP addresses, virtual local area networks etc.
Examples : Amazon EC2, Windows Azure, Rackspace, Google Compute Engine.
PaaS(Platform as a service):
Aas the name suggests, provides you computing platforms which typically includes
operating system, programming language execution environment, database, web server etc.
Examples : AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Heroku, Force.com, Google App Engine.
Saas(Software as a service):
In this model you are provided with access to application softwares often referred to
as on-demand softwares. You don't have to worry about the installation, setup and running of
the application. Service provider will do that for you. You just have to pay and use it through
some client. Examples : Google Apps, Microsoft Office 365.
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Department of CSE,MET’S School of Engineering,Mala
Different types of cloud’s are:
Fig 1.1.2 cloud computing types
Public
Public clouds are made available to the general public by a service provider who hosts the
cloud infrastructure. Generally, public cloud providers like Amazon AWS, Microsoft and
Google own and operate the infrastructure and offer access over the Internet. With this
model, customers have no visibility or control over where the infrastructure is located. It is
important to note that all customers on public clouds share the same infrastructure pool with
limited configuration, security protections and availability variances.
Private
Private cloud is cloud infrastructure dedicated to a particular organization. Private clouds
allow businesses to host applications in the cloud, while addressing concerns regarding data
Cloud Based E-Voting: One Step Ahead For Good Governance In India 5
Department of CSE,MET’S School of Engineering,Mala
security and control, which is often lacking in a public cloud environment. It is not shared
with other organizations, whether managed internally or by a third-party, and it can be hosted
internally or externally
Hybrid
Hybrid Clouds are a composition of two or more clouds (private, community or public) that
remain unique entities but are bound together offering the advantages of multiple deployment
models. In a hybrid cloud, you can leverage third party cloud providers in either a full or
partial manner; increasing the flexibility of computing. Augmenting a traditional private
cloud with the resources of a public cloud can be used to manage any unexpected surges in
workload.
The “cloud” in cloud computing can be defined as the set of hardware, networks,
storage, services, and interfaces that combine to deliver aspects of computing as a
service. Cloud services include the delivery of software, infrastructure, and storage over the
Internet (either as separate components or a complete platform) based on user demand.Cloud
computing has four essential characteristics: elasticity and the ability to scale up and down,
self-service provisioning and automatic deprovisioning, application programming interfaces
(APIs), billing and metering of service usage in a pay-as-you-go model. This flexibility is
what is attracting individuals and businesses to move to the cloud.
In the Cloud, users expect to be able to install complex software with super-user
privileges on-demand. If the cloud paradigm is to be extended to facilitate cross-provider
utilization of resources, several challenges need to be solved. One of the requirements for
Cross-Cloud computing discussed in this paper is the capability to create and efficiently
distribute interoperable virtual machines. First, We resent a Cross-Cloud virtual machine
creation solution that is based on a layered approach to allow a single user image to be
deployed to multiple cloud sites, including desktop Cloud sites.
Eg: for cloud services are,
• Microsoft’s SkyDrive,
• S3from Amazon
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Department of CSE,MET’S School of Engineering,Mala
Fig 1.1.3 cloud computing
e-Voting and cloud computing are well established concept as an individual so far,
there is a considerable space to incorporate the e-Voting with cloud computing to make it
success, an integration approach can certainly be proved as a better and efficient election
process. An election is the “formal choosing of a person for an office, dignity, or position of
any kind; usually by the votes of a constituent body”.
Fig 1.1.4 online voting
Cloud Based E-Voting: One Step Ahead For Good Governance In India 7
Department of CSE,MET’S School of Engineering,Mala
For any democratic country, the election plays an important role in the formation of
the government. There are two types of popular voting systems in India that are being used.
The first is Paper Ballot Voting System, in which votes are casted and counted manually
using paper ballots and the second is the e-Voting.
Cloud computing is a new technology that provides the computing platform for
sharing resources that includes infrastructures, software, data centres, applications, and
business processes. It is a paradigm that focuses on sharing data and computations over a
scalable network of nodes. In computer networking, cloud computing is computing that
involves a large number of computers connected through a communication network such as
the Internet, similar to utility computing. In science, cloud computing is a synonym for
distributed computing over a network, and means the ability to run a program or application
on many connected computers at the same time.
An effective secure and fear free e-voting model based on cloud computing is
developed. On implementation it will facilitate those voters who are willing but not in to the
position to cast their votes owing to their absence from head quarter for reasons beyond
their control. In this paper e-Voting model has been integrated with AADHAR CARD or
Unique Identification (UID) card data base using cloud. By integrating e-Voting model
with cloud infrastructure and AADHAR CARD database, percentage of polling would
increase and can provide authentic electoral voting mechanism to satisfy the need of the
voters. Cloud computing would also accelerates the e-Voting system because of the new
architecture and secure technology. It would enable users and developers to utilize
computing resources.
1.2 OBJECTIVE
Objective is to develop a framework for cloud based e-Voting system . This
framework provides an user friendly system using the newly developed technology, cloud
computing and provides better and secure ways to implement e-Voting services to the voters
who are not able to cast their vote at the booth, due to unavoidable circumstances. It will also
provide better services at the time of high load; it will distribute the load among the
Cloud Based E-Voting: One Step Ahead For Good Governance In India 8
Department of CSE,MET’S School of Engineering,Mala
resources. This cloud architectural framework will benefit the e-Voting in reducing the
operational cost and provide authentic, fast, secure and privacy to the voters.
On implementation it will facilitate those voters who are willing but not in to the
position to cast their votes owing to their absence from head quarter for reasons beyond
their control. In this paper e-Voting model has been integrated with AADHAR CARD or
Unique Identification (UID) card data base using cloud. By integrating e-Voting model
with cloud infrastructure and AADHAR CARD database, percentage of polling would
increase and can provide authentic electoral voting mechanism to satisfy the need of the
voters. Cloud computing would also accelerates the e-Voting system because of the new
architecture and secure technology. It would enable users and developers to utilize
computing resources that are virtualized and serve the needs of the voters via the internet
1.3 EXISTING SYSTEM
Popular voting systems in India that are being used are.
• Paper Ballot Voting System,
• electronic voting machines
Paper ballet system is a commonly used as traditional voting system. Widely used
before the introduction of Electronic Voting System. Paper ballet system includes casting the
vote using the paper and the stamp. Each voter uses one ballot, and ballots are not shared. In
regular elections, a ballot may be a simple piece of paper on which each voter writes in the
name of a candidate, but governmental elections uses pre-printed sheets to maintain the
secrecy of the votes. The voter casts his/her ballot in a box at the polling station.
An electronic voting system is a type of voting system which uses electronic
ballot that would allow voters to broadcast their secret vote ballot to election officials over
the internet. With the prosperity of internet over the years, inventers start to make the use of
electronic voting in order to make the voting process more convenient and to raise the
participation of the civic. From now on, engineers have repeatedly created new technology
to improve the feasibility of electronic voting system.
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Department of CSE,MET’S School of Engineering,Mala
1.5 DISADVANTAGES OF EXISTING SYSTEM
Usually Polling Percentage Remains At Most 60-65% In Most Of The Elections And
The Main Possible Reasons For That May Be :
(i) Lack Of Interest Of Public
(ii) People are Unable To Reach Voting Centres
Voting process using this existing systems are not much efficient due to this
reduced polling ratio,and also the expenses of voting is much larger due to the cost of
printing and distribution of the paper ballots, creating the polling booths, & their polling
parties expenses.People have to wait for a long time in queues to do the voting
process.Declaration of result takes much time and it may not be accurate at times.
Disadvantages of Electronic Voting System are
Inequality problem: It is obvious that the people with low salary might not be able to
pay for the equipments. And the person who doesn’t have proper computer
knowledge might lose their privilege in voting.
Vulnerable to Security: The security issue is the main concern of the electronic
voting system. So far, there are still many classes of attacks which are tough to thwart
completely.
Power: The Many polling places are located in areas that lack electricity service or
have only intermittent service. Thus, the EVMs operate entirely from battery power,
rather than merely using a battery as a backup.
Cost: The cost of the system is a major concern. The current EVMs are built from
expensive parts and cost approximately $200 for each set of units. Which costs
several thousand dollars.
1.6 PROPOSED SYSTEM
e-Voting and cloud computing are well established concept as an individual so far,
there is a considerable space to incorporate the e-Voting with cloud computing to make it
success, an integration approach can certainly be proved as a better and efficient election
process. e-Voting model has been developed which is integrated with AADHAR CARD or
Cloud Based E-Voting: One Step Ahead For Good Governance In India 10
Department of CSE,MET’S School of Engineering,Mala
Unique Identification (UID) card data base using cloud. By integrating e-Voting model with
cloud infrastructure and AADHAR CARD database, percentage of polling would increase
and can provide authentic electoral voting mechanism to satisfy the need of the voters. Cloud
computing would also accelerates the e-Voting system because of the new architecture and
secure technology. It would enable users and developers to utilize computing resources that
are virtualized and serve the needs of the voters via the internet. . This framework provides an
user friendly system using the newly developed technology, cloud computing and provides
better and secure ways to implement e-Voting services to the voters who are not able to cast
their vote at the booth, due to unavoidable circumstances. It will also provide better services
at the time of high load; it will distribute the load among the resources. This cloud
architectural framework will benefit the e-Voting in reducing the operational cost and provide
authentic, fast, secure and privacy to the voters.
On implementation it will facilitate those voters who are willing but not in to the
position to cast their votes owing to their absence from head quarter for reasons beyond
their control. In this paper e-Voting model has been integrated with AADHAR CARD or
Unique Identification (UID) card data base using cloud. By integrating e-Voting model
with cloud infrastructure and AADHAR CARD database, percentage of polling would
increase and can provide authentic electoral voting mechanism to satisfy the need of the
voters. Cloud computing would also accelerates the e-Voting system because of the new
architecture and secure technology. It would enable users and developers to utilize
computing resources that are virtualized and serve the needs of the voters via the internet
Aadhaar is a 12 digit Individual Unique Identification (IUID)number issued by the
Unique Identification Authority of India(UIDAI) on behalf of the Government of India. The
UIDAI's mandate is to issue every resident a unique identification number linked to the
resident's demographic and biometric information, by which they can use to identify
themselves anywhere in India, and to access a host of benefits and services. The card not only
has complete data of citizens viz. Name , DOB, Address, PAN No., Bank Account number
etc but also has a unique record of the iris images and scanned image of all hand fingerprint
which have an unique feature of that human beings. So the authority maintains a database of
all residents’ biometric and other data. Aadhaar data can be used for e-Voting with the use of
cloud computing. There is a considerable space to incorporate the voting with cloud
computing to make it a success. An integration approach can certainly proved to be a better
and efficient solution.
Cloud Based E-Voting: One Step Ahead For Good Governance In India 11
Department of CSE,MET’S School of Engineering,Mala
1.7 ADVANTAGES OF PROPOSED SYSTEM
It is very much portable system as the system works on internet only the internet
supporting device is required.
It is very fast as compare to traditional paper ballet voting system. The voter doesn’t
need to wait in long queue for voting. He /She can cast their vote just on a single
click.
As this system is functional on the internet that makes this system more flexible to
support variety of paper ballot question formats.
This system gives the freedom of casting the vote from anywhere in country. This is
beneficial for the voters who are regularly out of station.
The extent to which the existing application can be reused in new application. The
system can be reused a number of times without any technical difficulties.
Reduces the expenses of voting by reducing the cost of printing and distribution of the
paper ballots, creating the polling booths, & their polling parties expenses .
Provides the facility to those voters who are not in the position to cast their votes
owing to their absence from head- quarters.
It is useful for the officials busy in election duties, jobs, education and other reasons
beyond their control.
It will provide speed, privacy, authenticity, user friendly environment to the voter.
Depending on the the number of computers and internet connectivity and speed, a
number of users can cast votes at one time
The casted vote is encrypted & thus security is enhanced .
e-Voting proposed system is directly connected to the election commission server so
the system is fair and accurate
All the authentication is done by Aadhaar database so it is more authentic.
e-Voting proposed system provides the facility to record the individual’s vote and
count accurately. So the result can be declared quic
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Department of CSE,MET’S School of Engineering,Mala
2. E- VOTING
e-Voting is an election system that allow voter to cast his/her secret ballot
electronically. Electronic voting technology can include punched cards, optical scan voting
system and specialized voting kiosks (including self-contained Direct Recording Electronic
Voting System, or DRE). It can also involve transmission of ballots and votes via telephones,
private computer networks, or the internet .
In general, two main types of e-Voting can be identified :
• e-Voting which is physically supervised by representatives of governmental or
independent electoral authorities (e.g. electronic voting machines located at polling
stations);
• remote e-Voting where voting is performed within the voter's sole influence, and is
not physically supervised by representatives of governmental authorities (e.g. voting
from one's personal computer, mobile phone, television via the internet (also called
i-voting).
Being computer aided method Electronic voting can speed the counting of ballots,
reduce election cost and can provide improved and easy accessibility for disabled voters. In
2004, India had adopted Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) for its election in parliament.
The Electronic Voting Machines (EVM), which contains two devices, one device is the
Ballot unit that is used by the voter and is connected by a five meter cable with another unit,
called Control Unit that is operated by the polling officer. The ballot unit has a Blue Button
for every candidate and the voter can press any button of his/her choice. During the election
process the Polling Officer will press the ballot button from the control unit, this will enable
the voter to cast his vote by pressing the blue button on the ballot unit against the candidate
and symbol of his/her choice. A ballot unit is connected to the control unit and in one control
unit, 4 ballot units can be connected. In a ballot unit, there is a provision for 16 candidates,
and if the candidates are more than 16 then another ballot unit is connected to the control
unit. So in all, 64 candidates can be attached, and if candidates are more than 64 in a
particular election then another control unit needs to be used.
The working of EVM is centered for one particular booth and records the votes polled
only on that booth. The polling by the EVM and paper ballot voting system needs to check
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Department of CSE,MET’S School of Engineering,Mala
the identity of the voter with the help of electoral rolls available with the polling party and
produced by the voter ID card or other documents as and when prescribed by the Election
Commission of India. The finger nail tip of the voter is also coloured / marked by the
particular marking ink to prove the evidence that he/she has casted the vote.
Electronic votes are stored digitally in a storage medium such as
a tape cartridge,diskette , or smart card before being sent to a centralized location where
tabulation programs compile and tabulate results.Critics maintain that without a paper trail,
recounts are more difficult and electronic ballot manipulation, or even poorly-written
programming code, could affect election results.
It is the concern of the government that polling percentage remains at most 60-65% in
most of the elections and the possible reasons for that may be (i) that the public in general has
not emerged as they have no interest in polling (ii) they have interest but are not in a position
to cast their votes owing to their absence from head-quarters for reasons beyond their control.
Previously for the officials, busy in election duties were authorized to exercise their franchise
by postal ballot but this arrangement is seldom used and for masses no remedy is provided till
date. In this context, the use of AADHAR CARD database, cloud computing and other ICT
tools can be used.
Aadhaar is a 12 digit Individual Unique Identification (IUID)number issued by the
Unique Identification Authority of India(UIDAI) on behalf of the Government of India. The
UIDAI's mandate is to issue every resident a unique identification number linked to the
resident's demographic and biometric information, by which they can use to identify
themselves anywhere in India, and to access a host of benefits and services. The card not only
has complete data of citizens viz. Name , DOB, Address, PAN No., Bank Account number
etc but also has a unique record of the iris images and scanned image of all hand fingerprint
which have an unique feature of that human beings. So the authority maintains a database of
all residents’ biometric and other data. Aadhaar data can be used for e-Voting with the use of
cloud computing. There is a considerable space to incorporate the voting with cloud
computing to make it a success. An integration approach can certainly proved to be a better
and efficient solution.
There exists an ample amount of work on e-Voting but still there is a considerable
scope to extend in this field especially in terms of cloud computing. There is no holistic
work and approach suggested to exploit the cloud service in terms of e-voting therefore this
paper is an attempt to provide an innovative and efficient model for e-Voting .
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Department of CSE,MET’S School of Engineering,Mala
3. AADHAAR
Aadhaar is the national identification number system of India in the format 1234-
5678-9012. It is a 12-digit digital identity that can be verified online instantly. It is assigned
to all residents of India (including foreigners on work visa and their dependents) for their
lifetime, on a voluntary basis. It is not a proof of citizenship. It only guarantees identity, not
rights, benefits or entitlements. Every resident is issued with a a unique identification
number linked to the resident's demographic and biometric information, it Can be used to
identify themselves anywhere in India, and to access a host of benefits and services
• The Card Contains Details Such As.
• Name
• Parent Name
• Age
• Gender
• DOB
• Address
• PAN No
• Bank Account Number
• Photo
• Record Of The Iris Images
• Scanned Image Of All Hand Fingerprint
• This Number Will Serve As A Proof Of Identity And Address, Anywhere In India.
The Aadhaar program is operated by the Unique Identification Authority of India
(UIDAI), an authority of the Government of India. It was established in January 2009 under
the Planning Commission of India. Aadhaar is expected to play a prominent role in India
reforms from 2014 onward.UIDAI is the Registrar of Identities; that is, it registers, assigns
and verifies the unique identifiers. It is supposed to register two types of unique identities:
Residents of India (called Aadhaar)
Corporate entities (corporate UID) for companies, banks, NGOs, trusts, political parties,
etc.
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Department of CSE,MET’S School of Engineering,Mala
Fig 3.0.1 Aadhar card
The Aadhaar project was initiated as an attempt towards having a single, unique
identification document or number that would capture all the details, including demographic
and biometric information, of every resident Indian individual. Currently there are a plethora
of identity documents in India including passports, permanent account numbers (PANs),
driving licenses and ration cards. The Aadhaar card / UID will not replace these identification
documents but can be used as the sole identification proof when applying for other things. It
will also serve as the basis for Know Your Customer (KYC) norms used by banks, financial
institutions, telecom firms and other businesses that maintain customer profiles. Aadhaar
numbers will eventually serve as the basis for a database with which disadvantaged Indian
residents can access services that have been denied to them due to lack of identification
documents.A resident Indian can apply for the Aadhaar number and card by submitting the
existing proof of identity (passport, PAN card, driving license, etc.) and proof of address
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Department of CSE,MET’S School of Engineering,Mala
(phone/ power bill, bank statements, etc.) and by undergoing biometric profiling (fingerprints
and iris scan) at any Aadhaar center.
So far UIDAI has made progress on Aadhaar numbers (AN) only. Work on corporate
UIDs is yet to be published.However, corporate UIDs have been provisioned within the 12-
digit UID number system. The corporate UID is supposed to produce a similar effect for
corporate entities as Aadhaar does to a person, that is, identification and traceability of
transactions. It is supposed to bring transparency on financial transactions and donations, and
to prevent corruption, money laundering, benami transactions (i.e. under a fictitious name),
allocation of natural resources like land, spectrum, mining of sand, iron ore, coal blocks, etc.
A similar identifier is defined in ISO 9362 (business identifier code – BIC) for international
business transactions (financial and non-financial).
UIDAI stores identities in its main database server called the central identity data
repository (CIDR). Aadhaar identity is like internal passport to access various services in
India. Aadhaar enrolment commenced in September 2010. Corporate UID enrolment is yet to
begin.Aadhaar serves the purpose if an Aadhaar holder verbally tells the AN and it gets
instantly verified online at the point of service, through KYC or E-KYC process in a
paperless way, which provides high reliability of identity.Showing only a paper Aadhaar
letter provides low reliability of identity, as it can be easily faked.
By April 2014, about 51% population holds Aadhaar. The Aadhaar program has
already achieved the critical mass as of March 2014 by assigning 600 million (60 crore) AN
and linking over 60 million bank accounts for direct benefit transfer for various social
security benefits across many states. By 1 January 2014, half the nation (289 districts across
various states) was covered under Aadhaar-DBT for various benefits. Over 100 agencies (e.g.
banks, insurance, telecom etc.) use it for authentication services.Reserve Bank of India has
planned Aadhaar-linked bank account for all adults of India by January 2016 as its
commitment of nation-wide Financial Inclusion.
Aadhaar program is the largest biometric database in the world. Currently it has
750 million people (7.5 billion fingerprints, 1.5 billion iris image, 750 million face photo)
with 10 Petabytes of data. It will reach the entire population of 1.25 billion people by
December 2015 at the current rate of enrolment, 15 PB of data and over 200 trillion biometric
matches per day.
Cloud Based E-Voting: One Step Ahead For Good Governance In India 17
Department of CSE,MET’S School of Engineering,Mala
4. BENEFITS OF CLOUD COMPUTING IN E-VOTING
e-Voting and cloud computing are well established concept as an individual so far,
there is a considerable space to incorporate the e-Voting with cloud computing to make it
success, an integration approach can certainly be proved as a better and efficient election
process. e-Voting model has been developed which is integrated with AADHAR CARD or
Unique Identification (UID) card data base using cloud. By integrating e-Voting model with
cloud infrastructure and AADHAR CARD database, percentage of polling would increase
and can provide authentic electoral voting mechanism to satisfy the need of the voters. Cloud
computing would also accelerates the e-Voting system because of the new architecture and
secure technology.
The benefits of cloud computing are:
• Cloud helps in analyzing large amount of data and in detecting any discrepancy and
redundancy, provides mechanism to enhance the security and reliability of data to
validate the voter from AADHAR database and to collect and count the votes in
Election Commission data center .
• Cloud provides the location independent platform for the communication using fast
reliable internet with efficient fast computing power so that a user can work at
anytime from anywhere using the Web to cast the vote. .
• Cloud virtualization technology allows backup and restoring .
• Cloud helps to provide the quality services at the time of high load by using the
number of resources.
• Cloud computing supports mechanism and policies for the distribution of load among
the resources.
• e-Voting applications can be speedup using the cloud architecture that provides more
powerful servers, more memory, CPU, and fast storage device. The goal of cloud
computing is to apply super computing power to perform trillions of computations per
second.
Cloud Based E-Voting: One Step Ahead For Good Governance In India 18
Department of CSE,MET’S School of Engineering,Mala
5. PROPOSED MODEL FOR e-VOTING SYSTEM
Electronic election process or e-Voting, involves three basic steps:
1. Election Booth Setup
2. Voting
3. Result
Election Booth Set-Up: For the purpose of election set-up we need a polling officer, who
will setup an election booth for eligible voters and provide the required infrastructure for
scanning iris and fingerprint with the computer.
Voting: Voters will cast their vote through voting website and the system will authenticate
their identity. If authentication was successful, the voter will be allowed to cast their votes .
He/she can do this by clicking on the election and a electronic ballot will appear. When
he/she submits a ballot, the results are encrypted and kept anonymous. The voter is issued a
token number and is now blocked from voting for this election again.
Result: Once voting has ended, the results are immediately tabulated. The declaration of
results will be done by Election commission. For any dispute the results are made available to
anyone who will be able to verify the results by their token number though the voting
website.
Based on the above mechanism the proposed model will have three functional modules
namely:-
i) User Request and Authentication (URA): When a user request from any of the polling
centres of the country then the system will asks the UID No. and scan iris and fingerprint of
both the hands. The User Authentication Server (UAS) would validate and verify the users
authenticity by interfacing the UID card i.e. AADHAR CARD database. Once the user
authentication is done, then the voter is connected to election commission polling server and
e-ballot paper is loaded on to the registered computer of their area (e.g native place) that is
mention in the aadhar (UID)’s Permanent address . Then the voters fill in the e-ballot or cast
their votes to the candidate of the his/her choice. All votes remain secret while the voting
takes place and are submitted in encrypted form to the election commission polling server.
The election commission polling server verifies the legitimacy of the voter and generates a
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Department of CSE,MET’S School of Engineering,Mala
token to the voter. Suppose that if a voter has already voted, then the server will not allow the
voter to cast the vote.
ii) Vote Counting Server (VCS): It is the server that receives the authentic casted vote after
generation of the token by the Election commission server. The VCS collects the count of the
votes to provide the result.
iii) Service Management (SM): The above certified and mapped service is then dealt with
according to the consumer or end user satisfaction level. The model will essentially monitor
the mapped service in terms of authenticity, privacy, security, service delivery time and
quality. The model would also be responsible for secured service by fetching and delivering
the service through secured transmission channel ensuring the user satisfaction.
Fig 5.0.1. Proposed Framework Model for e –Voting
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Department of CSE,MET’S School of Engineering,Mala
6. DATAFLOW DIAGRAM
Fig 6.0.1.Service Request & Delivery in Proposed e-Voting
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Department of CSE,MET’S School of Engineering,Mala
7. ADVANTAGES OF E-VOTING SYSTEM
• e-Voting, reduces the expenses of voting by reducing the cost of printing and
distribution of the paper ballots, creating the polling booths, & their polling parties
expenses .
• The proposed model provides the facility to those voters who are not in the position
to cast their votes owing to their absence from head- quarters. It is useful for the
officials busy in election duties, jobs, education and other reasons beyond their
control.
• It will provide speed, privacy, authenticity, user friendly environment to the voter.
Depending on the the number of computers and internet connectivity and speed, a
number of users can cast votes at one time, At any polling booth .
• e-Voting is user friendly and authentic, so only authorised user can cast their votes,
the casted vote is encrypted & thus security is enhanced . Being a user friendly &
secure system it encourages the voters to cast votes & thus increase voter
participation.
• e-Voting proposed system is directly connected to the election commission server
so the system is fair and accurate and all the authentication is done by Aadhaar
database so it is more authentic.
• e-Voting proposed system provides the facility to record the individual’s vote and
count accurately. So the result can be declared quickly.
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Department of CSE,MET’S School of Engineering,Mala
8. CONCLUSION
Cloud computing is a new technology that provides the computing platform for
sharing resources that includes infrastructures, software, data centres, applications, and
business processes. It is a paradigm that focuses on sharing data and computations over a
scalable network of nodes. In computer networking, cloud computing is computing that
involves a large number of computers connected through a communication network such as
the Internet, similar to utility computing. In science, cloud computing is a synonym for
distributed computing over a network, and means the ability to run a program or application
on many connected computers at the same time.
A new framework for cloud based e-Voting system is proposed. This framework
provides an user friendly system using the newly developed technology, cloud computing
and provides better and secure ways to implement e-Voting services to the voters who are
not able to cast their vote at the booth, due to unavoidable circumstances. It will also
provide better services at the time of high load; it will distribute the load among the
resources. This cloud architectural framework will benefit the e-Voting in reducing the
operational cost and provide authentic, fast, secure and privacy to the voters. The above
proposed system also has some limitations. First the voter should also be familiar with the
working of computers and second is the internet connectivity and computers availability in
remote centres. To overcome this facilities by availing the services of educational
institutions spread all parts of India can be used, and by this the more than hundreds of
voters may cast their vote at one point. The services of banks i.e. their VSAT connections
and UPS may be used for Election Day in remote areas where the power is not available.
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Department of CSE,MET’S School of Engineering,Mala
9. REFERENCE
[1] National Institute of Standards and Technology(NIST), The NIST Definition of
cloud Computing, online available at http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/ 800-
145/SP800-145.pdf
[2] Simidchieva,B.I., Engle, S.J., Clifford, M., Jones, A.C., Peisert, S., Bishop, M.,
Clarke, L.A., and Osterweil, L.J – Modeling and analyzing faults to improve election
process online available at http://static.usenix.org/event/
evtwote10/tech/full_papers/Simidchieva.pdf
[3] John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors - The Oxford English
Dictionary. Clarendon Press, Oxford, UK, 2nd edition, 1991.
[4] Electronic Voting Wikipedia online available at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voting
[5] Indian Voting Machine Wikipedia online available at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_voting_machines [Accessed April 1, 2013]
[6] Jain Sangeeta and Jain Pradeep-Electronic Voting: Issues, Challenges and Strategy
online available at http://www.csi-sigegov.org/egovernance_pdf/12_95-103.pdf
[7] Website of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) http://uidai.gov.in
[Accessed April 1, 2013]