Secure Intranet Voting System for Students’ Union Elections in Nigerian Tertiary Institutions

Abstract

In virtually all tertiary institutions of Nigeria, electronic voting technologies for the conduct of students' union elections are yet to be implemented as a replacement for the existent manual voting technologies. Manual voting systems are primarily characterized by high incidences of electoral malpractices and irregularities. In this era of rapid globalization, the impact of information and communications technology (ICT) advancement in Nigeria is having numerous positive implications on students and their communities. In that regard, we sampled the opinions of users of the latter technologies, as this is crucial for the structuring and acceptance of our proposed system: Secure Intranet Voting System (SIVS). Thus questionnaires were distributed amongst randomly-selected potential voters; interviews were conducted with a subset of students' electoral commissioners and electorates at some Nigerian tertiary institutions. From our findings, we reached a consensus that the proposed system will aid in improving all electoral activities within Nigerian student communities. This paper proposes the design, development and implementation of a Secure Intranet Voting System (SIVS). The proposed system (SIVS) harnesses and utilizes the immense power of ICT techniques to create a striking impact in the way electoral activities are been conducted in Nigerian institutions. The goal of the system is tailored at establishing an efficient and effective electronic voting system aimed at improving students' democracy, and reducing electoral irregularities and malpractices in students' union elections, via a combination of robust voting technologies.