Abstract: The proposed online votingsystem with biometric authentication is an electronic voting system which seeksto make use of the uniqueness of the minutiae of the human fingerprint tofurther enhance the level of trust and confidentiality of the voters in thesystem as well as making the actual process as universally accessible aspossible which would be achieved through the deployment on the Internet. It isexpected to solve the two critical issues facing staff elections conductedwithin the University of Ibadan community which serves as the project casestudy.
For the voter registration and authenticationprocesses which are performed on the desktop module, the voter is expected tohave his or her fingerprints captured and the minutiae extracted that is storedon the database. This is done to prevent the occurrence of multipleregistrations or identity. Thus, during the authentication period, voters areexpected to undergo a matching verification of their fingerprint samplesagainst the values stored in the database which is identified through the useof a unique voter identification number assigned during registration
The project was able to achieve ahigh success rate in the use for conducting elections as it was able to stampmultiple registrations by voters through the combined use of both the uniquevoter identification number and their unique fingerprints. This effectivelysolved all questions that may arise on eligibility of voters and accreditationhiccups. Voters can thus proceed to the online module of the project to casttheir votes through any internet – connected device using the voteridentification number, security answer keyed in during the registration processas well as a token key that was generated automatically for each voter perelection on the online module. The token is sent by the administrator to eachvoter through his or her associated email. Worthy to note is that though votingis now done ubiquitously, it must carried out during the stipulated period ascontained in the email message sent to the voters.
Conclusively, the University ofIbadan Online Voting System with biometric authentication project, has beenable to deliver an electronic voting system that solves all the highlightedchallenges of the traditional system of conducting staff elections within theUniversity of Ibadan, offering voters a trusted and credible means ofexercising their franchise with great ease. It is therefore recommended to bedeployed fully in subsequent staff elections.