CHAPTER 1

Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study

As technology continues to evolve, we are now on the brink of another major transition:
from a connected world to a hyper-connected world. We are in the midst of a shift from
seeing the Internet as a separate place that we go to periodically in order to get access to
information or communicate with others to the Internet as a constant presence in our
lives, a pervasive force that keeps us continuously connected to the entire universe of
resources available online (Adler, 2014). Digital interconnection of people and things are
expanding to anytime and anywhere. It is estimated that by 2020 over 50 billion
networked devices will co-exist in the world (Afsarmanesh et al., 2016). The exponential
growth of mobile devices, big data, and social media are all drivers of this process of
hyper connectivity. Consequently, we are beginning to see fundamental transformations
in society (Guaragni et al., 2016).
A growing number of studies have been carried out to understand learning and
teaching activities in online learning environments (OLEs) and to design effective OLEs
for meaningful learning in higher education (Cho et al.,2015). It is a systematic way of
conceptualizing the execution and evaluation of the educational process, learning and
teaching and help with the application of modern educational teaching techniques (Stošić,
2015). Electronic voting systems attempt to be as easy to use and secure as ideal
traditional elections and attempt to eliminate the human errors (Meter, 2017). The
developing world has been reported to have significant interests in voting technology and
the rate of e-voting implementation has been faster therein than in developed countries. In
countries such as Nigeria, e-voting has been considered a necessity and as the only
solution for credible elections (Hapsara et al., 2016). Many countries, especially the
underdeveloped and developing, have found it almost impossible to adopt the use of e-
voting system in their electoral processes due to a barrage of problems (Osho et al.,
2016).
India is second populous country in the world (1,028,737,436 in 2001). India
constitutes twenty eight states and seven union territories (Yadav et al., 2014). The
objective of using electronic voting machines in India was to strengthen the electoral
processes and to reduce the costs of conducting elections. Voting machines were used for
the first time, as an experiment, in 1998 in Paravur assembly bye-election in the state of
Kerala (Debnath et al., 2017). A TreeMap based visualization technique was proposed to
monitor in real-time the distributed balloting and voting processes. It was proved that
TreeMap algorithms can be configured and deployed on the central server to monitor
effectively the voting transactions in real-time and hence enable transparency. Brazil has
used Direct-Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines nationally since 2000 (Hao &
Ryan, 2016). The introduction of electronic voting has been the biggest change. E-Voting
may soon become a global reality or a global nightmare (Njogu, J. I. 2014).
Computers are increasingly being used for electronic vote-casting and vote
counting because they have the potential to be cheaper, faster and more accurate than
hand-counting (Goré & Lebedeva, 2016). The dynamic development of modern
technology leads to noticeable changes in functioning of contemporary countries and
societies, and as a result of these changes ICT has begun to play greater role and filter
down to almost every field of contemporary human life– also politics (Musiał-Karg, M.
2014). These technologies have also reduced the manpower that used to be spent on the
traditional voting system (Inuwa & Oye, 2015). One of the main advantages of electronic
voting systems is the chance to call a completely verifiable election, which means that all
voters are able to verify if their vote was properly counted and even that the complete
election was properly tallied (Meter, C. 2017).
The Misamis University Oroquieta campus is still using the existing voting
system that had produced inconvenience not only to the voters but also to the election
facilitators. The study aims to enhance the existing e-voting system of the university. On
the other hand, the system does not cover the whole Misamis University elections and it
is mainly focused on addressing the election process during the departmental elections
which is conducted under the Central Student Council (CSC). After thorough
examination conducted, the researchers found out that the traditional method of voting
has a lot of problems and inconsistencies that result from the manual voting method has
led to serious manipulations and rigging of the process, which in turn causes conflicts and
disagreement among the members of the organization. In addition, the process of human
supervision over the election process requires a lot of effort and money in order to

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achieve the desired level of privacy, security and trust. Moreover, when the election is
done, another problem appears which is casting and counting of votes. This is an
extended time consuming method and extremely a lot of prone to errors (Prasad et al.,
2016).

1.2 Statement of the Problem

The following were the aspects found by the researchers which considered as
occurring problems in Misamis University Oroquieta Unit voting system.
The traditional election is normally held under the supervision of election
facilitators, to assure the right application of the rules during the election process and to
ensure that only registered/enrolled students are permitted to join the election process
avoiding any kind of forgery and the attempts of multi-voting. In addition, a manual
voting requires an accurate count of votes enable to know the results of the winning
candidate after the voting process. The results of manual voting came into question due to
several factors regarding human error and miscount of votes.
Specifically, many of the traditional problems faced in manual voting revolve around
security issues. Tallying and transmission of results are the root of unintended errors. It
takes a lot of time in voting manually because the voter needs to write down their chosen
candidate, and it is hassle for the election facilitator to count the votes of the student one
by one.

1.3 Study Objectives

The general objective of the study is to redesign the manual voting system that
had produced inconvenience not only to the voters but also to the election facilitators and
the administrator towards the selection of departments Student Council which will allow
voters to cast votes in a more convenient way. This project was founded and created to
replace the existing election process used in Misamis University for a small-scale
election. Our goal was to develop a secure, fast, accurate, user-friendly system, easy and
systematic way of conducting a voters registration and candidate applications. To
properly manage the election in a well organize manner. To secure the integrity of votes
of the student, to generate quickly a correct, accurate and reliable canvassing result. To
generate instantly needed summarized of voting results.

1.3.1 Specific Objectives

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 The specific objective of the study is to validate the system, to ensure that only
legible voters are allowed to vote. Those students who are not eligible to vote should ask
assistance from the administrator. The study aims to allow student to cast votes once. In
addition, the system will display casted votes in a real time manner and validating the
system to ensure that only legible voters are allowed to vote. Lastly, to lessen the time of
the students who participates the election.
1.4 Scope and Limitations
This study encompasses only the development and implementation of voting
system in student council which secures a reliable election by undergoing a series of
process. First, the voters are registered and given the login details to log into the system,
voter’s ID number is very important to student because ID is one of the verification of the
students.
The voters cast their votes and the system saves the votes into the database and
other database for backup purposes. The votes are manage, sorted and it well displays
into a real time graphical percentage so that people see the progress of votes in every
candidates and ready for counting. Afterwards, the votes are decrypted and counted. The
system checks whether the eligible voters voted and if their votes were counted for the
final tally, lastly, the results of the final tally will then be published on the hosted website.
The system also comprises the ability of the system administrator to add update
user as well as updating their information. It could allow the system admin to create,
remove, update, and edit an event.
The system does not cover the whole Misamis University. It is mainly focused on
addressing the election process during the Student Council elections which only includes
the students and school administration of the school premises. Maintenance staff are
prohibited to use the system as they are not included in the election event.

1.5 Significance of the Study

This study envisions the development of the voting System in Misamis
University. It is intended for the rendition of trusted election process through a voting
system with real time graphical percentage.
Accuracy. This study can also further enhance the accuracy of all valid votes and the
final outcome; permit voting once for only eligible voters, allows verification of the votes
performed by the voters, and includes login forms for the users.

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Authentication. The authentication of voters and candidates will be possible as the
system administrator registers the student information and provides them the election
code which will be significant for security reason. They could be identified simply by
their Student ID number.
Data Integrity. In this set up, the system could possess data integrity which is beneficial
to the users wherein the voters could ensure that their votes are counted to the candidates
they have chosen by looking in graphical percentage . At the same time, the cases of
votes miscounts could be reduced since at the backend of this system resides a well-
managed database.
Timely computation. The election can be held in a timely manner wherein all
computation during the election are done in a reasonable amount of time and voters are
not required to wait on other voters to complete the process because the vote will be
displayed in real time graphical percentage. So that they well excited for the results.
Graphical User Interface. This system ensures a lot of advantages to moderate the
student council and subsequently reinforce its transparency and fairness as well as
providing easy and user-friendly environment for the interaction of the voters the system
through a conventional database and its structure.
Furthermore, the system is beneficial to the following:
Students: It will also give convenience to those people who will use the proposed system
like the students in terms of time consumption, reliability issues and hassles.
Central Student Council: The proposed study will also help the Central Student Council
to make use of this system in CSC voting.
Misamis University. It will improve the current voting system in MU, produced
inconvenience not only to the voters but also to the election facilitators.
Researchers: The study can also help in the part of the researchers to boost insights and
information in developing a system for their future studies. The researchers will also
benefit from their study in improving their skills, knowledge and academic performance
in writing a thesis.
Future Researchers: The proposed study will also benefits and help the future
researcher as their guide in conducting a research about voting system of an organization,
and how to develop a software. The proponents are also open in development of this
study.

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