Online Voting System For Independent Electoral And Boundaries Commission (IEBC), Kenya

Abstract

Most countries world over provide for an electioneering process where citizens elect their national leaders in a democratic manner. This is of great importance as it inculcates the principle of democracy into the citizens. Proper management therefore is called for to provide full proof processes which can be termed as free and fair in the standards of universal democracy and employment oflnformation Technology is a sure way to realize this. Online voting is the application of web based technologies to the automation of voting processes. In online voting a voter cast their ballot from a remote terminal that is connected to the central database where actual processing of the ballot is done. Online systems have the advantage of providing convenience to the voter and reduce the time wasted in the queuing process at election centers. This paper describes a research carried out in Kenya and the process undertaken to achieve development and deployment of a web based system to promote free and fair democratic electioneering process: computerizing registration, voting and tallying process involved. The system described is in form of a portal that is embedded on the IEBC website. The system was developed using the incremental proto typing due to the adaptive nature of web based applications and the system proved that a computerized solution is possible with elimination of human related faults that are a common place in employment of human clerks to manage the election process. Application of the online voting shall result in many advantages in the efficiency of the entire electioneering process and reduced costs the country used to incur using the human clerk mechanism.