High Performance Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) Implementation Using ARM Cortex M3

Abstract

The main building stone in a democratic country are fair elections. In India, the main objective of introducing Electronic voting machine was to reduce mishaps and frauds especially in states which are politically sensitive and are subjected to frequent re-polls due to electoral rigging and imbalance in voting system. The EVM machine currently used by our government requires updated Microcontroller like ARM Cortex M3 which has advanced features like Memory protection, Accurate Time stamping using Ultra Low power RTC, cost sensitive, efficient interrupt controller (NVIC), a RTOS timer (the SysTick). These features make the software on ARM Cortex M3 much more efficient. In this paper using ARM Cortex M3, this research work has replicated features currently available in the EVM and also included some features like RESET and final vote count display as password protected. Designed EVM system will allow a person to cast his/her vote only once, the casted vote being recorded by the ballot unit which is controlled by control unit. In the process of vote, the person casting the vote would able to watch glowing LED near the candidate party symbol. By this candidate conclude themselves that vote has been recorded. The process followed by enabling the ballot on control unit by the PRO.