WO2014061039A2

WO2014061039A2 - A voting system

Info

Publication number: WO2014061039A2
Application number: PCT/IN2013/000637
Authority: WO
Inventors: H.S Shreyas.
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2012-10-18
Filing date: 2013-10-18
Publication date: 2014-04-24
Anticipated expiration: 2015-04-18
Also published as: WO2014061039A3; WO2014061039A9

Abstract

The present invention mainly relates to voting system using biometric information thereby locking the same with the voting machine. Further, the voting machine verifies thereby authenticating the voter to cast a vote. The casted vote is verified with the biometric information of the voter with the information locked at the server in order to validate the vote.

Description

Field of the invention

The present invention mainly relates to voting system, and more particularly, to the biometric voting system.

Background of the invention

A voting is a well known formal decision making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold public office. This process may be used in private, public, business organization, corporations, associations and colleges and the like. Voting equipment have been used for years to accept, record and tabulate votes cast during an election so that election results can be available in a matter of a few hours instead of the several hours or days that were once necessary. Normally, the voting process takes place with the help of giving ballot paper to each and every person for voting. This process makes the huge wastage of ballot paper and a time consuming process. Due to time consuming process, stopping of industry for one day (giving holiday to the employs to put the vote compulsory) takes place. Moreover, there is wastage of money for transportation of polling agents from one place to another place for avoiding of favor to the any of the contestant in the booth. So in order to resolve this electronic voting machines have been get introduced. l While modern voting machine speeds the voting process, problem still exist. In modern voting machine if the polling officers and workers are not doing his duty truly (favor to any other party) it is easy to the officer to put any number of vote in above machine. At this point the electronic voting machine fails to identify the fake voting. And these kind of electronic machine may have an opportunity to tamper with the hardware so that a vote intended for one candidate is recorded for another (favorable).

Some of these electronic machines require a smartcard to activate the machine to vote. However, a fake smart card could attempt to gain access to vote multiple times. Abusing the administrative access to the machine by election officials might also allow individuals to vote multiple times and further there is no identification or proof how many numbers of votes he or she put still now. Furthermore this machine also may not have possibility to identify the fake voting. Moreover, it finds difficult for the uneducated peoples to vote. In addition to this, the present machine fails to the automatic deletion of person if he/she is not voting.

People who are in out of station have a practical difficulty to deposit their vote. To solve this they introduce online voting so that people who are not in hometown may vote to his or her particular locality. Here the method solves the above difficulty but still problem is there. There is a chance of hacking the vote through online. There is a chance of trapping the online voting. In online or biometric voting signature as criteria if taken, it is difficult for uneducated and also every person cannot sign every time same. In addition of the above, no such voting machine exists which achieves 100% voting by active participation including nationals and non-resident of the country. Further in the election or voting process the problem again present in the counting process. During counting process the swapping of the votes between two candidates may possible. Occasionally the officer who is counting the votes may have a possibility to misread their votes.

Therefore there is a need in the art for an improved voting system to solve the above mentioned problems.

Summary of the invention An aspect of the present invention is to address at least the above- mentioned problems and/or disadvantages and to provide at least the advantages described below.

Accordingly an aspect of the present invention is a voting system, the system comprising: a check-in computer configured to provide voting information of at least one voter, a election official or poll worker computer station configured to receive the voting information of the at least one voter, a biometric device connected to the election official computer station, wherein the biometric device is configured to receive biometric information from a election official, wherein the biometric device validates that the election official can utilize the election official computer station, the election official computer station configured to compare the voting information of the at least one voter with voter biometric information of at least one current voter to determine if the voter biometric information of the at least one current voter is equivalent to the voting information of the at least one voter, if the voting information of the at least one voter is equivalent to the voter biometric information of the at least one current voter, the election official locks the voter information and thereby allows the voter to proceed for casting an electronic vote in at least one voting booth station of a plurality of voting booth stations and the voter booth station allows the voter to cast a vote, wherein the casted vote is verified with the biometric information of the voter with the information locked at the primary server in order to validate the vote. In another aspect of the present invention is a voting system, the system comprising: a check-in desk configured to provide voting information of at least one voter, a election official computer station configured to receive the voting information of the at least one voter, a biometric device connected to the election official computer station, wherein the biometric device is configured to receive biometric information from a election official, wherein the biometric device validates that the election official can utilize the election official computer station, the election official computer station configured to compare the voting information of the at least one voter with voter biometric information of at least one current voter with their respective constituency and also to determine if the voter biometric information of the at least one current voter is equivalent to the voting information of the at least one voter, if the voting information of the at least one voter is not equivalent to the voter biometric information of the at least one current voter, the election official computer station configures the central server in order to retrieve the necessary information thereby locking the voter information and allowing the voter to proceed for casting an electronic vote in at least one voting booth station of a plurality of voting booth stations and the voter booth station allows the voter to cast a vote irrespective of geographical location, wherein the casted vote is verified with the biometric information of the voter with the information locked at the check-in desk and the central server in order to validate the vote.

Other aspects, advantages, and salient features of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description, which, taken in conjunction with the annexed drawings, discloses exemplary embodiments of the invention.

Brief description of the Drawings

The above and other aspects, features, and advantages of certain exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be more apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which:

Figure 1 describes the typical voting system.

Figure 2 is a diagram illustrating a voting system according to one embodiment of the present invention.

Figure 3 is a diagram of a hardware environment applicable to an embodiment of voting system. Figure 4 is a diagram of a storage medium storing a computer program providing an embodiment of voting system.

Persons skilled in the art will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and may have not been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figure may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure.

Throughout the drawings, it should be noted that like reference numbers are used to depict the same or similar elements, features, and structures. Detailed description of the Invention

The following description with reference to the accompanying drawings is provided to assist in a comprehensive understanding of exemplary embodiments of the invention as defined by the claims and their equivalents. It includes various specific details to assist in that understanding but these are to be regarded as merely exemplary. Accordingly, those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that various changes and modifications of the embodiments described herein can be made without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention. In addition, descriptions of well-known functions and constructions are omitted for clarity and conciseness. The terms and words used in the following description and claims are not limited to the bibliographical meanings, but, are merely used by the inventor to enable a clear and consistent understanding of the invention. Accordingly, it should be apparent to those skilled in the art that the following description of exemplary embodiments of the present invention are provided for illustration purpose only and not for the purpose of limiting the invention as defined by the appended claims and their equivalents.

It is to be understood that the singular forms "a," "an," and "the" include plural referents unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. Thus, for example, reference to "a component surface" includes reference to one or more of such surfaces.

By the term "substantially" it is meant that the recited characteristic, parameter, or value need not be achieved exactly, but that deviations or variations, including for example, tolerances, measurement error, measurement accuracy limitations and other factors known to those of skill in the art, may occur in amounts that do not preclude the effect the characteristic was intended to provide.

Figs. 1 through 4, discussed below, and the various embodiments used to describe the principles of the present disclosure in this patent document are by way of illustration only and should not be construed in any way that would limit the scope of the disclosure. Those skilled in the art will understand that the principles of the present disclosure may be implemented in any suitably arranged communications system. The terms used to describe various embodiments are exemplary. It should be understood that these are provided to merely aid the understanding of the description, and that their use and definitions in no way limit the scope of the invention. Terms first, second, and the like are used to differentiate between objects having the same terminology and are in no way intended to represent a chronological order, unless where explicitly stated otherwise. A set is defined as a non-empty set including at least one element.

FIG. 1 shows a system 100 in accordance with the disclosed subject matter. The system 100 includes terminals 105 at a check-in desk, and corresponding check-in stations 1 10. The terminals 105 and check-in stations 110 are computers, computing devices, work stations, and the like, that may be linked to a network (not shown in figure), for example, a wide area network such as the Internet, a satellite network, a cellular network, or combined wired and wireless network, typically through gateways (by wired or wireless links or combinations thereof), so as to be in data communication with a check-in server (CS) or main server (not shown in figure), or other central computer, typically of the Jurisdiction's Board of Elections. Once a voter 115 has checked in at a check-in station 1 10, they proceed to vote at a voting machine 125, in accordance with the disclosed subject matter, detailed below.

The terminals 105 may be electronically linked, by wired or wireless links, or combinations thereof, to voting machine 125. Each terminal 105 includes a hard drive and/or other hardware and/or software, including interactive storage media, which stores composite information specific to each of the jurisdiction's precincts, for example, in Bangalore, the hard drive (and/or the other hardware and/or software) of each terminal 105 would store ballot images or all necessary information for all of the precincts. FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a voting system according to one embodiment of the present invention. The system 200 includes one or more regions or stages including region/stage (a) and region/stage (b). The region (a) includes terminals 205 at a check-in desk, and corresponding check-in stations 210. The region (b) includes voting station or voting booth station, including voting machine 225. The region (a) consists, one or more biometric device, computer, printer, central computer, database, and the voting module.

In an operation, the voting system allows the voter 2 5 to enter in the region (a) where the election official 220 attends the voter. The election official 220 request the voter 215 to provide the necessary information, where the information may be or may include name of the voter, voter ID issued by the election commission or any other ID issued by the government officials. In addition to the necessary information, the election official 220 requests the voter 215 to provide the biometric information. The biometric device may be ID card reader, finger print scanner. The idehtification card reader that reads the data on the identification card and a temperature sensitive finger print scanner that scans a live finger print. The biometric information may be or may include thumb impression, retinal data, palm information, signatures, face, iris, foot print, foot finger impression etc. Upon receiving the voter ID information and the biometric information, the election official 220 verify with the check-in desk 215. This data is input to a computer at the site, which may or may not have voter data stored in its database. If data is in the database of the computer at the voting module, then the input finger print and identification card data is compared with the database to determine whether the voter identified by the finger print and identification card is a registered voter entitled to vote in the election. Upon verification, the voter is getting registered with the check-in desk and further the biometric information of the voter is locked with the voter ID. The whole process of verification with the check-in desk is applicable to the election officials, where each officials has to authenticate with the biometric information in order to login the computer or check-in desk computer. Upon verification, the election official is allowed to use the computer.

The voter upon registered proceed for casting a vote in the region (b). The region (b) includes a voting machine. The voting machine may be networked with other devices in the system. The voting machine displays various candidates who are all eligible nominee for that region. The voting machine also has a portion (e.g. button, or biometric detector) for each eligible nominee along with their name and the symbol allotted by the election commission. The voting machine allows the voter to cast a vote using finger impression or thumb impression on their choice in the biometric detector of the voting machine. Upon casting the vote by the voter, the voting machine or check-in PC any one or both communicates to verify whether the voter casted the vote is the same voter who was registered and locked at the check- in PC. If the system, verifies that the information provided by the same voter at the check-in PC and the voting machine, the system registers the vote as a 'VALID' vote. If the system, verifies that the information provided at the check-in PC and the voting machine are different, the system registers the vote as a 'INVALID' vote and should not be consider for count. The voting machine may include a database (not shown in figure) for storing all the valid or invalid information of the voting.

Once the candidate selections are made by the voter by way of casting the vote, the selections are sent to the central as well as regional computers so that access for that voter is prohibited to there by prevent the voter from voting more than once. If the voter proceeds to cast another vote or a voter inadvertently reached another region to cast his/her vote by using the biometric and other data are verified by the election official at the check-in counter. If the data is not in the database of computer, then the regional computer for that group is accessed and checked to verify whether the voter is registered and entitled to vote. If the data is not available from the regional computer for the voting module group, it means the voter is not eligible to vote in the voting modules for that group, but may be eligible to vote elsewhere.

The computer may access the central computer to check its database to determine where the voter is eligible to vote and direct the voter to that location. It may also possible, where the system checks with the main computer or server at the remote location based on the voter ID information and allows the voter to cast his vote in the visited region and lock the voter information, so that the same person cannot vote twice. In any of the circumstances, the voter reached the voting machine to cast his vote without locking biometric information at the check-in counter, the casted vote which is not matched with the locked biometric information the casted vote will be discarded and not considered for counting while selecting the candidate.

Once the candidate selections are made, the selections are sent to the site computer and the central as well as regional computers so that access for that voter is prohibited to there by prevent the voter from voting more than once.

In the voting machine, apart from the list of candidates displayed on the screen of electronic voting machine, there is also a provision indicating that "none of the candidates are eligible". Persons not interested to vote for corrupt politicians may choose this option which gives the election commission a chance for introspection. Memory module system generally includes high-speed main memory in the form of a medium such as random access memory (RAM) and read only memory (ROM) semiconductor devices, floppy disks, hard disks, tape, CD-ROM, etc.

In the voting machine, each candidate may be assigned memory block which is a part of main memory of machine. For every valid vote registered, numerical data gets stored in the respective memory block assigned to each candidate where this option is provided for the special provision also. This may be easy to the counting officer to count the votes.

In the voting machine with the help of booth number a voter residing in other area can vote for a person contesting election in x, where x is the hometown of that voter. Example: suppose a person has registered his name in Bangalore constituency but due to some reason he/she is in Gulbarga, vote can be cast for a person contesting elections from Bangalore. The whole system of voting is done or achieved by digital ballot paper, where a person from any town or city can cast his/her vote without being physically present in that city which leads to 100% voting. In addition to this, the system checks and makes a record for each person who has enrolled to vote and also who has casted the vote in each election. If the machine identifies that a person who is enrolled or eligible for voting and the same person has not voted for continuous 2-3 times in the election, then his name may be list in black list or the system may remove the name from the database. Once the name is removed from the database, same person has to re-register himself with the election commission office.

All the polling booths may be assigned a unique number and that number is also displayed when a voter's finger print is analyzed. Here in the voting machine by changing booth number the area and names on the voting machines change automatically and the person can cast his vote for the person of same constituency as the person manpower required for monitoring election process in very less. If any person tries to tamper with the machine, alarms are sounded.

Further, the voting machine may also have a provision of automatic closing and opening of the machine. In one embodiment, the voting machine which may be enclosed with the rigid material or like. During the voting processes, the voting machine is in closed position. The voting machine having a biometric sensor, which sense and verifies the election official to open the voting machine and allows the person to cast his/her vote. Upon voting is completed, the machine automatically closes which restrict the tampering of the voting machine.

To count the votes the chief counting officer of that particular has to give his finger print before and after the counting process to make sure that only he /she has access to that machine. Every counting officer has some machines which he needs to monitor while counting the votes. This officer has to work in tenders with his colleagues and enter the data present in the machine in an online account which is particular only to that particular village after the completion of counting process of general elections. Figure 3 is a diagram of a hardware environment applicable to an embodiment of voting system. The system 300 includes a processing unit 310, a memory 320, a storage device 330, an output device 340, an input device 350 and a communication device 360. The processing unit 310 is connected by buses 370 to the memory 320, storage device 330, output device 340, input device 350 and communication device 360 based on Von Neumann architecture. There may be one or more processing units 310, such that the processor of the computer comprises a single central processing unit (CPU), a micro processing unit (MPU) or multiple processing units, commonly referred to as a parallel processing environment. The memory 320 is preferably a random access memory (RAM), but may also include read-only memory (ROM) or flash ROM. The memory 320 preferably stores program modules executed by the processing unit 310 to perform voting support functions. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, scripts, Web pages, or others, that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. Moreover, those skilled in the art will understand that some embodiments may be practiced with other computer system configurations, including hand-held devices, multiprocessor-based, microprocessor- based or programmable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, and the like. Some embodiments may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices linked through a communication network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in both local and remote memory storage devices based on various remote access architecture such as DCOM, CORBA, Web objects, Web Services or other similar architectures. The storage device 330 may be a hard drive, magnetic drive, optical drive, portable drive, or nonvolatile memory drive. The drives and associated computer-readable media thereof (if required) provide nonvolatile storage of computer-readable instructions, data structures and program modules. The processing unit 310, controlled by program modules received from the memory 320 and from an operator through the input device, directs voting support functions.

Also disclosed is a storage medium as shown in FIG. 4 storing a computer program 410 providing the disclosed voting module. The computer program product includes a storage medium 420 having computer readable program code embodied therein for use in a computer system. Voting support systems and methods, or certain aspects or portions thereof, may take the form of program code (i.e., instructions) embodied in tangible media, such as floppy diskettes, CD-ROMS, hard drives, or any other machine-readable storage medium, wherein, when the program code is loaded into and executed by a machine, such as a computer, the machine becomes an apparatus for practicing the invention. The disclosed methods and systems may also be embodied in the form of program code transmitted over some transmission medium, such as electrical wiring or cabling, through fiber optics, or via any other form of transmission, wherein, when the program code is received and loaded into and executed by a machine, such as a computer, the machine becomes an apparatus for practicing the invention. When implemented on a general-purpose processor, the program code combines with the processor to provide a unique apparatus that operates analogously to specific logic circuits. Certain terms are used throughout the description and claims to refer to particular system components. As one skilled in the art will appreciate, consumer electronic equipment manufacturers may refer to a component by different names. This document does not intend to distinguish between components that differ in name but not function.

Although the invention has been described in terms of preferred embodiment, it is not limited thereto. Those skilled in this technology can make various alterations and modifications without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention. Therefore, the scope of the invention shall be defined and protected by the following claims and their equivalents.

FIGS. 1-4 are merely representational and are not drawn to scale. Certain portions thereof may be exaggerated, while others may be minimized. FIGS. 1-4 illustrate various embodiments of the invention that can be understood and appropriately carried out by those of ordinary skill in the art.

In the foregoing detailed description of embodiments of the invention, various features are grouped together in a single embodiment for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure. This method of disclosure is not to be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claimed embodiments of the invention require more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive subject matter lies in less than all features of a single disclosed embodiment. Thus, the following claims are hereby incorporated into the detailed description of embodiments of the invention, with each claim standing on its own as a separate embodiment.

It is understood that the above description is intended to be illustrative, and not restrictive. It is intended to cover all alternatives, modifications and equivalents as may be included within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims. Many other embodiments will be apparent to those of skill in the art upon reviewing the above description. The scope of the invention should, therefore, be determined with reference to the appended claims, along with the full scope of equivalents to which such claims are entitled. In the appended claims, the terms "including" and "in which" are used as the plain-English equivalents of the respective terms "comprising" and "wherein," respectively.

Claims

I Claim:

1. A voting system, the system comprising: a check-in computer configured to provide voting information of at least one voter; a election official or poll worker computer station configured to receive the voting information of the at least one voter; a biometric device connected to the election official computer station, wherein the biometric device is configured to receive biometric information from a election official, wherein the biometric device validates that the election official can utilize the election official computer station; the election official computer station configured to compare the voting information of the at least one voter with voter biometric information of at least one current voter to determine if the voter biometric information of the at least one current voter is equivalent to the voting information of the at least one voter; if the voting information of the at least one voter is equivalent to the voter biometric information of the at least one current voter, the election official locks the voter information and thereby allows the voter to proceed for casting an electronic vote in at least one voting booth station of a plurality of voting booth stations; and the voter booth station allows the voter to cast a vote, wherein the casted vote is verified with the biometric information of the voter with the information locked at the primary server in order to validate the vote.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the biometric device is configured to receive voter information including thumb impression, retinal data, face, foot print, foot finger impression, palm information, signatures etc.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the check-in desk configured to provide voting information of the voter including name of the voter, address of the voter, polling booth number allocated for the voter, photo image of the voter, age of the voter and the like.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein if the locked information at the election official station matches the casted vote, the system validate the vote as registered vote or valid vote or else the system consider as a invalid vote get discarded.

5. A voting system, the system comprising: a check-in desk configured to provide voting information of at least one voter; a election official computer station configured to receive the voting information of the at least one voter; a biometric device connected to the election official computer station, wherein the biometric device is configured to receive biometric information from a election official, wherein the biometric device validates that the election official can utilize the election official computer station; the election official computer station configured to compare the voting information of the at least one voter with voter biometric information of at least one current voter with their respective constituency and also to determine if the voter biometric information of the at least one current voter is equivalent to the voting information of the at least one voter; if the voting information of the at least one voter is not equivalent to the voter biometric information of the at least one current voter, the election official computer station configures the central server in order to retrieve the necessary information thereby locking the voter information and allowing the voter to proceed for casting an electronic vote in at least one voting booth station of a plurality of voting booth stations; and the voter booth station allows the voter to cast a vote irrespective of geographical location, wherein the casted vote is verified with the biometric information of the voter with the information locked at the check-in desk and the central server in order to validate the vote.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the biometric device is configured to receive voter information including thumb impression, retinal data, face, iris, foot print, foot finger impression, palm information, signatures etc.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein the check-in desk coupled to the central server in order to configure for providing voting information of the voter including name of the voter, address of the voter, polling booth number allocated for the voter, photo image of the voter, age of the voter and the like.

8. The system of claim 5, wherein if the locked information at the election official station matches the casted vote, the system validate the vote as registered vote or valid vote or else the system consider as a invalid vote get discarded.

9. The system of claim 1 or 5, wherein the election official computer station is configured to tally a plurality of votes from the plurality of voting booth stations and transmit the vote count to a remote vote dump database using main server.

10. The system of claim 1 or 5, wherein the election official computer, biometric device, voting booth station and voting machine are represented by unique identifier.