Implementation of an Electronic Voting System with Contactless IC Cards for Small-Scale Voting

There have been several studies on using computer technologies to improve elections and these studies lead to widespread adoption of ldquodirect recording electronicrdquo (DRE) voting systems in recent years. In an electronic-voting system, voters go to their voting places and prove that they are allowed to vote there by presenting an ID card with signet. After this, the voter is given a token that allows them to vote for their candidates of choice at a voting machine. When the voter´s selection is complete, DRE systems with typically present a summary of the voter´s selections, giving them a final chance to make changes. Subsequent to this, the ballot is cast and voter shall return the given token to ballot box and leave voting place.In this research, we design and implement an e-voting system that provides DRE capability. Our e-voting system is equipped with an IC card reader and a touch-panel LCD. Cost and security are the two most important facts to the success of our e-voting system. Low cost on the token is obtained by selecting re-usable contactless IC card as voting token. Security of our e-voting machine is obtained not by secrecy, but by openness and secure coding of software.