Cloud Based E-Voting: One Step Ahead For Good Governance In India
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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
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Cloud Based E-Voting: One Step Ahead For Good Governance In India
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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, ser vices, which appear to be provided by real server hardware hardwar e and are ar e 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)
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Cloud Based E-Voting: One Step Ahead For Good Governance In India
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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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Cloud Based E-Voting: One Step Ahead For Good Governance In India
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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
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Cloud Based E-Voting: One Step Ahead For Good Governance In India
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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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Cloud Based E-Voting: One Step Ahead For Good Governance In India
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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
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Cloud Based E-Voting: One Step Ahead For Good Governance In India
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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
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Cloud Based E-Voting: One Step Ahead For Good Governance In India
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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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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
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Cloud Based E-Voting: One Step Ahead For Good Governance In India
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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.
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Cloud Based E-Voting: One Step Ahead For Good Governance In India
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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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Cloud Based E-Voting: One Step Ahead For Good Governance In India
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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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Cloud Based E-Voting: One Step Ahead For Good Governance In India
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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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3. AADHAAR
Aadhaar is the national identification number system of India in the format 12345678-9012. 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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Cloud Based E-Voting: One Step Ahead For Good Governance In India
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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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Cloud Based E-Voting: One Step Ahead For Good Governance In India
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(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 12digit 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.
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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.
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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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Cloud Based E-Voting: One Step Ahead For Good Governance In India
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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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Cloud Based E-Voting: One Step Ahead For Good Governance In India
6. DATAFLOW DIAGRAM
Fig 6.0.1.Service Request & Delivery in Proposed e-Voting
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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.
Department of CSE,MET’S School of Engineering,Mala
Cloud Based E-Voting: One Step Ahead For Good Governance In India
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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.
Department of CSE,MET’S School of Engineering,Mala
Cloud Based E-Voting: One Step Ahead For Good Governance In India
23
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/ 800145/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]
Department of CSE,MET’S School of Engineering,Mala