Claims:We claim,

1. An electronic voting system, which simplifies elections, within the jurisdiction, utilizing biometric verification effectively.

? Fingerprints being an unique source of identity, are used for validating the presence of an user.

? With the help of biometric authentication, it is checked whether a person is performing duplicity or not.

? The votes casted are stored with the respective fingerprints in a locally created database.

2. As mentioned in claim 1, there is a local database which gets instantaneously created in the flash memory of the system unit, when the overall voting process commences and then amends itself as the voting process protrudes for every voter.

3. In accordance to claim 2, the entire voting system works on a dynamically created database and not on a predefined database.

? The chances of hampering the system database for any unfair result, are completely eradicated.

? The system presents more safety and security, not allowing any vulnerable access to anyone.

? The secrecy of a voter’s choice, is maintained, thereby retaining his privacy.

4. The system is compact and hassle-free.

? The system can easily be carried from one place to another, thereby enhancing ease of transportation.

? The space required for the overall setup is not much.

5. A display screen is interfaced with the system which shows the respective instructions of the voting method to the user.

? The entire structure is therefore, self-explanatory.

? Extra manual labour for looking after and explaining the process during voting, is omitted.

6. The system internally counts the total number of votes per candidate and thereby shows the final result on the display screen.

? The need for manual counting of votes is no longer required.

? Quantity of paper used is reduced to great extent, thereby saving large number of trees.

7. A cost-effective and economical model, saving on both manual labour and any extra overheads.

8. Upto 128 such electronic voting systems can be cascaded, at a place, with each device storing maximum 1024 votes.

? The device comes to great use while conducting elections among a huge mass of population.

? The possibilities of invalid and doubtful votes are eliminated, which are mostly the root causes of controversies and election petitions.

9. The system can hold voting options for at most, 18 candidates.

10. A system-reset is integrated in form of a hardware button, pressing which will reset the entire system and delete the created database.

? There are no external communication paths, which make it difficult for hackers to hack the machine and tamper the votes or it's counts.

? The system is efficient against any virus or malicious programming which may cause hindrance during voting.
, Description:The current invention brings forth a cost-effective and efficient electronic voting system that is built using a member of the AVR family, integrated with a biometric module, and mounted with a number of push-button type switches as voting options. The system also has a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) interfaced with the AVR chip, which is used to display any information to the user.

Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) is an elementary electronic device, which is made to record and store votes in an electronic format, replacing the ballot system, which was used earlier in typical voting systems. The machine is developed, keeping in mind the ease of being operated by both the polling crew and the voters. As it is a standalone system, without any network connectivity, therefore, no one can hinder with it’s programming and distort the result. As in many places, the power supply may be an issue, hence, the machine has been designed to run on batteries. The main control unit of the system is the AVR microchip, which controls the functioning of the EVM, be it recording data, tallying it, or generating the result. The program regulating the operation of the control unit is burnt into the AVR microcontroller on an “one time” programmable basis, after which it can neither be read, accessed or altered.

A microcontroller (MCU) is like a small computer on a single integrated circuit. It contains one or more central processing units (CPU) along with memories, like RAM and EEPROM, and programmable input/output peripherals. An AVR microcontroller, manufactured by Atmel, executes most of the instructions in single execution cycle and is about four times faster than its contemporaries. Also, it consumes less power and can be operated in different power saving modes.

In an EVM, security has always been the foremost concern, starting with authenticating a voter till safe-guarding the casted votes. In order to ensure that no unauthorized person is able to cast his vote, we have integrated biometric verification in our system. Biometric identifiers cannot be easily mislaid, counterfeited or duplicated, and hence, they are treated to be more dependable and accurate for recognizing and validating a person, than the traditional token or as such methods. As biometric authentication refers to identifying an intrinsic part of a person, therefore, we have chosen to use fingerprints, as essential biometric information. Fingerprints are the primeval and most extensively used form of biometric recognition. Therefore, for capturing a person’s fingerprint, we have made use of a Biometric Module. The voting process begins with the display screen asking the voter to place his finger on the biometric module, in order to check for the authentication of the voter.

The Biometric Module consists of an optical fingerprint scanner system, whose integral part is a charge coupled device (CCD). The CCD is a device similar to a light sensor system as used in various electronic cameras. It is a group of contiguous light-sensitive diodes called photosites, that generate an electrical signal in response to light photons. A pixel, a tiny dot of light hitting the target, is noted by each photosite. An image of the scanned finger is formed by the light and dark pixels, unitedly. Generally, an analog-to-digital converter processes the analog signal to generate a digital representation of this image.

When the voter places his finger on the glass plate of the fingerprint module, a CCD camera takes a picture through the transparent glass plate. The embedded camera is usually bundled with an array of LEDs, to lighten up the ridges of a finger placed on the plate. An inverted image of the fingerprint is developed by the camera, with darker areas representing the ridges on the fingerprint due to reflected light, and lighter areas representing the valleys between the ridges. After the scanner processor ensures that the CCD has captured a clear image, the print is compared to the stored data. The image obtained from the scan can be rejected initially if the average pixel darkness, or the overall values in a small sample, are checked and if the overall image is too dark or too light, resulting which, the scanner adjusts the exposure time to grant in more or less light, and then re-analyses the scan. If the darkness level is sufficient, the scanner system goes on to check the sharpness of the image, also known as the image definition. At this point, multiple straight lines placed horizontally and vertically across the scanned image are observed. If the scanned image has favorable sharpness, then a curve perpendicular to the detected ridges will be generated, passing through alternating areas of dark and bright pixels. If the processor considers the image to be crisp and well-exposed, then it proceeds to compare the scanned fingerprint with fingerprints in the database.

After having successfully taken the fingerprint, the system checks it with a local database in the in-built memory of the biometric module, whether the fingerprint already exists in it or not. The local database is a database which is created when the overall voting process starts and gets updated as the voting process progresses, with the fingerprints of the voters along with their votes. As the database is dynamically created, the system is completely an offline structure, thereby wiping out any chances of network vulnerabilities, chances of auditing or any kind of network hacking. If the fingerprint is not detected in the database, then the voter is identified as an authorised voter and his fingerprint gets enrolled in the database.

The fact that whether a voter is eligible or not, is transmitted by the Biometric Module to the AVR Microcontroller via Serial Communication. Serial communication refers to the transmission of data serially, in a sequential order, over a computer bus or a communication channel. In our system, we have implemented two types of serial communication protocol for interacting with the AVR Microcontroller. The Biometric Module communicates with the MCU using the SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface) communication protocol, which takes place through the data pins (MOSI and MISO), using a clock line(SCK) and a slave select line(SS). In SPI communication, there is a single master device which is capable of controlling several other slave devices. The particular slave device with which the master wants to communicate is selected by the SS line. The master and the slave, send data and it’s corresponding response, through the MOSI and MISO pins respectively, as and when triggered by the clock signal from the SCK line. Thus, SPI provides synchronous means of serial communication, which is considered to be comparatively fast

On the contrary, the Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), used in the referred system, connects to the MCU using I2C (Inter-Integrated Circuit) communication protocol. It is a synchronous serial communication protocol, which like UART, uses only two wires (SDA and SCL) for it’s exchange of data, and is hence, also referred to as Two Wire Interface (TWI) protocol. I2C protocol can support multiple master as well as slave devices. Every device transmits or receives data, bit by bit, using only SDA line. SCL maintains the synchronization between devices, through common clock, provided by the active master. In our case, MCU is the master and LCD is the slave, and there is only one way communication from master to slave. During the voting process, whenever any information or message is to be informed to the user, the MCU sends it to the LCD and it displays it. It acts as a visual interface between the voter and the entire system.

A Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) comprises of two states of matter, the solid and the liquid. It uses a liquid crystal to generate a visible image on a super-thin technology display screen. LCD displays are available in various dimensions, of which the suitable dimension is chosen on basis of requirement. It is very compact, thin and have light CRT(Cathode Ray Tube) displays. Due to low power consumption, small heat is emitted during its operation.
In this system, LCD technology is used for displaying relevant messages of the steps to be taken in the voting process, as instructed by the MCU. It acts as a virtual guide for the voter in the voting process.

After the voter is authorised to vote, the microcontroller activates the push-button type switches for voting. Apart from having push-buttons signifying separate candidates, the system also has a ‘None Of The Above’ (NOTA) option, for those people who don’t want to cast vote to any of the candidates for certain reasons. It is based on the principle that consent embraces the ability to withhold consent in an election, just as they can by abstaining from voting for any present candidates and casting a “No Vote” instead. Voting is the right of every citizen and so is the right to choose a leader of their own choice. If people feel that they deserve better leader than in the given options, then they can let the government know about it, through the NOTA option. NOTA option not only widens options for voting, but also makes the leaders realize what kind of leader the population wants. Earlier, in order to cast a negative vote, the presiding officer at the polling booth had to be priorly notified. Having a NOTA option in the machine, would not require the involvement of the presiding officer. The voter presses any one of the buttons of his choice and casts his vote, which gets stored in the local database, alongside his fingerprint.

There is also a “Result” button, pressing which will close the voting process and reset the entire system. The local database will be completely cleared such that no one will be able to hamper the votes or track anyone’s vote. The calculated result of all the votes of each candidate will be displayed on the LCD screen and also the winner would be stated. In case NOTA option gets the maximum number of votes, it would display the votes received by each candidate and declare, no winner, thereby making the government take a necessary measure.

As we mentioned earlier, that using biometric verification, a voter is authorized to vote. If suppose the voter turns out to be unauthorized, that is, his fingerprint is already present in the local database and his vote has already been recorded. In such a situation, an alarm would be raised, thereby making the surrounding people aware of the fraudulent act, and also the entire system would go into an “idle” state for a certain time period. During this time period, no one can access, reset or misuse the system.

As the local database is dynamically created and not connected to any network, therefore, it protects the system from various kinds of virus attacks and system hacking. Again, since the votes are stored in the database with the respective fingerprints of the voters, hence, no one can perform duplicity. Also, due to the automatic-resetting feature, the anonymity of a voter’s vote is preserved, guaranteeing a voter’s safety, when voting against a malicious candidate, and parallely, there is no evidence as to which voter voted which candidate. Thus, confidentiality is preserved and security of ballots and voter identities are maintained. Therefore, all means of auditing votes or tampering the system, are nullified. As the counting of votes is done internally, within the system, therefore, it reduces the amount of time required and also chances of incorrect results tend to nil and it also reduces logistical and administrative costs. The overall system is cost-effective, considering production cost of printing, postage and mailing ballots.

Thus, this system re-establishes the concept of Electronic Voting Machine with a different approach towards biometrics and security of the system, keeping it cost-effective and convenient to be used by anyone and anywhere.