Smart Vote

Summary

An Electronic Voting System has been developed that can be installed on Android tablets and implemented in the Local Bodies and General Elections. This system will eliminate the paper based balloting and counting system and instead electronic method will be used for voting. The system can be installed in the polling station by the Presiding Officer with little training.

Key Features

This system is named as SmartVote. In addition to the other features the key features of the SmartVote are as follows:

• SmartVote will be installed in each polling booth and initial setup will be made by the Presiding Officer in front of the Polling Agents.
• When the poll starts the ballot will be displayed on the color screen of the SmartVote with symbols (and names if applicable) of the contesting candidates. The voter can vote to his/her desired candidate by taping on his/her finger on the symbol on the screen.
• A message is displayed to the voter and also played on the speaker of the SmartVote that the vote has been polled. At the same time a beep is played on the speaker informing the Polling Staff and Polling Agents the vote is polled.
• Polling Staff and Polling Agents are also notified by SMS with a vote is polled. This notification message looks like “Vote Polled. Vote Count: 54”.
• At the end of the polling, the Presiding Officer closes the poll on the SmartVote by clicking a button on the SmartVote.
• When Poll is closed all Polling Agents are notified by SMS. This notification SMS looks like “Poll Closed. Total Votes Polled is 632”.
• Result of the Polling Station is sent to the Polling Agents in the form of SMS within seconds.
• SmartVote requires no power supply or Internet connection.

Initial Setup

When the SmartVote system is turned on a welcome screen is displayed (figure-1). The Presiding Officer will tap on the “Start Setup” button in front of all Polling Agents.

When “Start Setup” button is touched the “Polling Agents Mobile Nos.” screen (figure-2) appears. This screen is used to enter mobile phones nos. of the polling agents present in the polling station. The Presiding Officer types in the mobile phone no. in the textbox and tap on the “Add To List” button. Mobile phone nos. of all polling agents are added to the list one-by-one. When the Presiding Officer is finished with adding mobile phone nos. of the polling agents he/she taps on the “Next” button at the bottom of the screen. On taping the “Next” button the ballot is displayed with no. of votes for each candidate as zero. This screen will be shown by the Presiding Officer to all polling agents and they will make sure that all candidates have zero votes initially. When the polling agents and Presiding Officer make sure that the number of votes for each candidate is zero, the Presiding Officer can start poll. He/she starts the poll by taping on the “Start Poll” button at the bottom of the screen. When the “Start Poll” button is touched the poll starts and the first ballot appears on the screen. At the same time a SMS message is sent to all the polling agents that the poll has started, this message looks like “Polling Stared”.

Polling

Voter sees the names and symbols of the contesting candidates on the screen on SmartVote and taps on his/her desired candidate (figure-4). By taping on the symbol of the desired candidate the vote is polled in the SmartVote. When the vote is polled a beep is produced by SmartVote to tell the Polling Staff that vote has been polled. At the same time a voice message is played to the voter ووٹ پول کرنے کا شکریہ and the message is also displayed on the screen (figure-5). A SMS message is sent to all polling agents the vote has been polled. This message looks like “Vote Polled. Vote Count: 43”. SmartVote waits for one minute before displaying ballot to the next voter.

Closing the Poll

When Poll time is finished the Presiding Officer will tap on the setup button of the SmartVote in front of all polling agents. The setup menu with only one option i.e. “Close Poll” appears on the screen (figure-6). When the “Close Poll” option is taped the poll closes. SMS message is sent to all polling agents that the poll has been closed, this message looks like “Poll Closed, total votes polled are 534”. After this message result of the polling is SMSed instantly, the result SMS looks like “Ahmad: 43, Ali: 200, Asif: 34 …”. The result is also sent by SmartVote to the server in the ECP Secretariat. The Poll Closed screen appears (figure-7), the Presiding Officer taps on the “انتخابی نتائج” button to display the result of the poll (figure-8).

Required Equipment

The application has been developed on Android platform but can be developed for iOS or Windows platform as well.  SmartVote can therefore be implemented either on Android tablets or iPad. The tablets and iPads come in different sizes and costs.

Other options are also available that can be explored to identify the right hardware.

Some Issues

SmartVote has been made transparent with the instant notification system through SMS. Poll start, vote polled, poll closed and results are SMSed to the polling agents instantly which makes the system quite transparent. If GSM network is not available in the polling station these notifications will cannot be delivered. This area of the SmartVote need to be addressed and alternate solution need to be found for the small number of polling stations where GSM network is not available.