CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1   Background
of the Study

The federal republic of Nigeria comprises of 36 states, The
federal capital territory (FCT), and 774 local government areas (LGAs). The
country is located in west Africa and shares land borders with the republic of
Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east and Niger in the north. The
three largest ethnic groups in Nigeria are the Ibo, Hausa and Yoruba ethnic
groups. 

In Nigeria, General elections are conducted every four
years, where a head of state the president and the national assembly representatives
are elected. They are elected by the people. The national assembly has about
360 members representing various constituencies.

Most African electoral bodies with no exception to INEC,
even with the advancements of technology, still use primitive paper based
methods during voting; this system is characterized by manual form filling to
chose leaders and transfer of information from manual data capture forms to
computerized datasheets, this has led to a high number of mistakes making their
way into the final votes count. The main advantage of the paper based system is
the ballot papers are easily human auditable. The disadvantages outweigh the
advantages for instance printing of ballot papers is slow, expensive,
inflexible, environmentally hostile and also literacy limitations and last
minute changes to the voter register are difficult to accommodate among others.
Over the last few years some election observers have suggested the introduction
of electronic voting at state and federal level. The web based voters
registration system mainly addresses the voting phase. Electronic voting
process using the web based voters registration system should be cheaper than
the present paper based system been used by the independent national electoral
commission (INEC). Online voting is an electronic way of choosing leaders via a
web driven application. The advantage of online voting over the present manual
system is that the voters have the choice of voting at their own free time and
reduced congestion. It also minimizes on errors of vote counting. The
individual votes are submitted in a database which can be queried to find out
who the aspirants for a given post has the highest number of votes. With the web
based voters registration system , a voter can use his/her voting right online
without any difficulty. He/she has to register as a voter first before being
authorized to vote. The registration should be done prior to the voting date to
enable data update on the database.

1.2   Statement
of the Problem

The election process begins from voters registration. The
method adopted during voters registration goes a long way to determine the
freeness and fairness of the election. In Nigeria, voting/registration process
is very cumbersome. So many cases, missing data in the voter registration file
have been reported. There are also situations where unregistered voters flock
to the polling station to participate in the voting process. Even after voting,
malicious clerks and officers- in – charge of a polling station end up playing
with the result figures. 

1.3  Objectives of the Study

 The
aim  of this project is to develop a
database for voter’s registration which will in turn help government to conduct
a free and fair election using electronic machines.  

 To replace the  current inefficient manual system of voting
in Nigeria.

 To ensure credibility in elections by
preventing double voting,

 Help the government reduce the huge
costs incurred in conducting

elections.

1.4    Scope of the Study

The research work is designed to enable National Electoral
Commission to use electronic device to capture voter’s information. The design
will cover some security issues like authenticating the nationality of the
voters through integrating the national ID database to the voter’s registration
process and also capturing the picture of the electorates for validation during
election.

1.5      Limitations

During the design of this project work, much finance was
required and owing to the financial meltdown globally, the research was limited
by finance and hence concentrated on the available materials within the
locality.

1.6    Significance of the Study

In view of the rapid development of computer technology in
virtually all fields of operation and its use in relation to information
management, it has become important to look into the development of electronic
voters registration system to enable government to achieve the following: 

(a)             
Conduct free and fair election 

(b)            
Safeguard data and information in the system. 

(c)             
Reduced workload in the process of conducting election

(d)            
Keep accurate record of votes

(e)             
Reduce time wasted in announcing election result

(f)              
Eliminate disenfranchising electorates.

1.7   Project Report
Organisation

This project was covered under
five stages:

 CHAPTER
1; Deals with the introduction. The background of the project is discussed. The
objectives of the project, its significance, scope, and constraints are pointed
out.

 CHAPTER
2; This chapter is a Review of Voters Registration in Some Countries and the
literature review. 

 CHAPTER
3; Discusses system Investigation and Analysis. It deals with detailed
investigation and analysis of the existing system and problem identification.

 CHAPTER 4; Treats the system design and
implementation

 CHAPTER 5; The summary and conclusion
of the project are finally

treated in
this chapter. 

1.8    Definition of Terms

voting system: is
a method by which voters make a choice between options, often in an election or
on a policy referendum

e-voting: also
known as electronic voting is a term encompassing several different types of
voting, embracing both electronic means of casting a vote and electronic means
of counting votes.

Information System:
It is a collection of procedures, people, instructions and equipment to produce
information in a useful form

Technology: It is
study of techniques or process of mobilizing resources (such as information)
for accomplishing objectives that benefit man and his environment

Computer Network: is
a system that connects two or more computers together using a communication
link.

Databases:  A systematically arranged collection of
computer data, structured so that it can be automatically retrieved or
manipulated. It is also called databank.