A secured automated bimodal biometric electronic voting system

ABSTRACT


INTRODUCTION
Voting is the most indispensable asset in any democratic country. It is the process of selecting a suitable candidate to lead the people. A democratic nation is the people's country. Democratic government can only be right when there is provision for a trustworthy and secured electoral process [1]. E-voting is an emerging technology that has improved the traditional method of voting [2]. E-voting with the use of biometric has provided a more secure way of voting in a democratic country compared to the traditional voting where papers are used, and voting is insecure [3][4][5]. Biometric is a physical and biological quality of an individual which is different for every person [6][7]. There are different types of biometric traits among which are facial recognition, Fingerprint, iris recognition, and palm print [8][9][10].
Rigging of elections are still possible in today democratic process because one person could votes more than one. Most of the system are not biometrically automated and as such would not be able to identify the imposters, who possesses more than one voter's card and as such could do multiply voting. With the application of bimodal biometric, the traits are unique to that right person only and can easily detects and stop imposters.
This paper proposes a web-based and secured automatic bimodal biometric electronic voting system. The biometrics was used to identify individuals that are eligible to vote; the proposed method 2 provided likely voters with a unique ID and a token code. The proposed electronic voting system also provided a dependable, transparent. It secured electronic voting system that eliminated the possibility of impersonation by using two biometric traits and automating the voting process to save time. The resulting system had the propensity to improve the integrity factor of the voting process by making it fast, transparent and robust [11][12][13][14][15].
The [16], developed a web-based voting system using fingerprint recognition. The design proposed was used for a university's presidential election. Four candidates and 40 voters registered for the election. Each voter's particulars, biometric and regular were collected and stored in a database. During the election, the registered voters were able to cast votes over the internet. The software used to implement the e-voting system was written in C#.
In [17], a framework was proposed for a low cost secured electronic voting system based on facial recognition using local binary pattern (LBP) for extracting facial feature characterization in texture format and chi-square for image classification. A two-level security using a passcode and biometric (face) was implemented. The proposed system was web-based. The system eliminated the need to wait for the vote to be counted by providing a page that shows the live count of the election every second, thereby minimizing votecounting time.
F. I. Hazzaa, S. Kadry, and O. K. Zein [18] proposed a framework to ensure secured identification and authentication processes for voters using Fingerprint biometric. The main aim was to eliminate fake voters, vote repetition and provide more transparency. The Fingerprint was used for the identification of the individual. In the proposed system, a network connection and electoral officers were not needed. The electronic voting machine was designed to direct eligible voters on how to cast votes without the need of a network connection or an attending electoral officer. Olaniyi et al. in [19] designed a secure electronic voting system using fingerprint biometric and the crypto-watermarking approach. The fingerprint biometric was used for the identification of the individual. The system also used an encryption standard (AES) cryptographic algorithm to improve the integrity of the proposed method [20][21][22][23][24][25].
The paper is organized; thus, a thorough expository on the methodology used for the study is given in section three (Methodology). The results of the study are elucidated in section four (Results and Discussion).

RESEARCH METHOD
The proposed electronic voting system centred on two trait biometrics, the fingerprint and the iris. The system design improves the overall security and credibility of electoral processes. The proposed method is designed and implemented using an Irishield-UART MO2120, a Digital Persona U&U 4500 fingerprint scanner and a personal computer. The biometric sensors were used to acquire the wanted biometric trait, and the personal computer was used as a development environment to create the database and software used to cast votes. Figure 1 shows the functional block diagram of the proposed voting system. The proposed voting system was programmed using C# language. SQL server was used to create the electronic voting database. The database created had three tables; the candidate table for the candidate data, the voter table for the voter (the eligible voters) information with their biometric details and the vote table for vote counting. Visual studio 2017 was the integrated development environment (IDE) used to implement the voting system. Visual studio has a lot of unique that made it easy to integrate various plugins. The codes used in C# were long. Visual studio made it possible to find a code amid lots of other systems.
During the registration phase, various information was required from the individual or user such as username, state of origin, password, and also validation of birth certificate. The registration was used to create an online account for each eligible voter. Immediately after registration, individuals are given a unique code. The flow chart in Figure 2 shows how the registration process was carried out. Figure 3 shows the online registration page of the proposed voting system.
The algorithm for the registration process is: Step 1: Initialize Step 2: Proceed to webpage Step 3: Proceed to registration Step 4: Input your person's details Step 5: Upload your picture and birth certificate Step 6: Are you eligible to vote Go to step 7 Else Go to step 1 Step 7: Unique ID sent via mail  The next phase after registration was the biometric enrolment. Iris and fingerprint samples were acquired from eligible voters using the Irishield-UART MO2120 and the Digital Persona U&U 4500 fingerprint scanner, respectively. The information (biometric images) got from each eligible voter were stored along with the voter's particulars in the database.
Once an individual enrols in the system, the user has the privilege to vote. Authentication refers to as identification implies a one-to-one match. During the authentication stage, the biometric sample of the user is compared to the previously stored information. Figure 4 shows the flowchart of the voting process. The user is first prompted to provide a unique ID and token password.  The algorithm of this process described by Figure 4 is: Step 1: Initialize Step 2: Log in Step 3: Is login true Go to step 4 Else Go to step 1 Step 4: Vote Step 5: Pick your candidate Step 6: Authenticate your biometric Step 7: Input your iris Step 8: Does iris match Go to step 9 Else Go to step 7 Step 9: Input your fingerprint Step 10: Does fingerprint match Go to step 11 Else Go to step 9 Step 11: Input your unique ID code Step 12: Is ID true Go to step 13 Else Go to step 11 Step 13: Select a state to cast your vote Step 14: Select the party of your choice Step 15: Input your token password Step 16: Is token password true Go to step 17 Else Go to step 15 Step 17: Vote counted Step 18: End The biometric authentication stage requires the voter to provide biometric input (iris and fingerprint). The biometric input is compared to the biometric information saved on the database (i.e. the system performs a one-to-many authentication) as shown in Figures 5-6.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
After testing the functionality of the system, registration began, and various students registered. A database of multiple users was developed, as shown in Figure 8. The detail of users activities can be monitor from the administrator's end.
It was discovered that the performance of the biometric system could be influenced by environmental factors during the image acquisition stage and the performance factors of image quality algorithm used. In order to measure the accuracy and performance of the biometric system, the following performance metrics were used:

CONCLUSION
The primary objectives of this study were achieved as the electronic voting system using bimodal biometric eliminated fraud and the possibility of voting more than once. The implementation of a three-level security bimodal biometric e-voting system was successful. It was web-based and allowed only one time voting for each eligible user.

ISSN: 2252-8938
A secured automated bimodal biometric electronic voting system (Kennedy Okokpujie) Dr. Okokpujie Imhade Princess, is a researcher/lecturer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering Covenant University, Ota, Ogun State Nigeria. She is currently the Chief Editor to Covenant Journal of Engineering and Technology (CJET), she is also a reviewer to so many international/local journals and conferences. Her areas of research interest are Machine Design, Advanced Manufacturing such as Machining, Tool Wear, Vibration, and Nano-lubricant, Energy Systems, Mathematical Modeling, Optimization, Simulation, and also a Multi-Disciplinary Analysis. She is an active researcher who has authored over 109 peer-reviewed publications. In 2017 to 2019 She was the technical secretary to the International Conference on Engineering for a Sustainable World (ICESW) index in Scopus and ISI data based through the IOPs publisher. She is a Registered Engineer of the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN), a member of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), and Association of Professional Women Engineers of Nigeria (APWEN). She is currently the Vice Chairman of APWEN Ota Branch in Ogun State. She is one of the top-rated researchers in her institution.