BLOCKVOTING:AN ONLINE VOTING SYSTEM

USING BLOCK CHAIN

2022 International Conference on Innovative Trends in Information Technology (ICITIIT) | 978-1-6654-0670-3/22/$31.00 ©2022 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/ICITIIT54346.2022.9744132

Divya . K Mrs Usha K

Department of Computer Science Department of Computer Science
NSS College of Engineering NSS College of Engineering
Palakkad(dist), Kerala,India Palakkad(dist), Kerala,India
Email: [email protected] Email :[email protected]

Abstract—The voting mechanism is extremely important in a

democratic country like India. And we all know that any flaw in
the voting mechanism will raise serious concerns about the entire
electoral process. Creating a crowd in the existing scenario of
Covid-19 also adds a lot of complications. As a result, in such a
situation, the online voting system will be a huge success in the
election. However, the online system’s security and transparency
raise certain concerns. So incorporating blockchain into online
E-voting will eliminate all of these flaws. The method allows
voters to register and vote for any candidate. The vote will be
saved in a secure block chain, but all other information, such as
the voter’s name, city, and whether they voted or not, will be
accessible to anybody via the website. This system will provide Fig. 1. Distributed ledger
security by denying duplication of votes.
Index Terms—block chain,e-voting,transparency,security The figure 1.1 shows the structure of DLT. The importance
of distributed ledger technology cannot be overstated. Acces-
sibility, impenetrability, and transparency are only a few of the
main features that make it so appealing to companies. It’s a
method of storing data that promotes immutability, confidence,
and openness among the nodes involved in the process. A
distributed ledger such as blockchain is one example. Instead
I. I NTRODUCTION
of keeping data centralised as in a conventional ledger, dis-
tributed ledgers use independent nodes to register, exchange,
and synchronise transactions in their own electronic ledgers.
Data is divided into blocks on the blockchain. In an append
In recent years, system security has become increasingly only mode, blocks are chained together.
important in all fields. So, voting systems, particularly online In its most basic form, a blockchain is a time-stamped
voting systems, suffer from the same problem. In a pandemic collection of permanent records of data that is maintained by a
crisis, such as COVID-19, an online voting system can help group of computers that are not operated by a single individual.
to limit crowding and transmission of corona and other in- Cryptographic concepts are used to protect and connect each
fections. As a result, system security is a primary concern of these blocks of data (i.e. block).
in this situation. This paper deals with implementing evoting
using blockchain.which provide security at the data level. DLT
stands for distributed ledger technology, which is a digital
mechanism for tracking asset transactions in which transac-
tions and their records are registered in various locations at the
same time. Distributed ledgers, unlike conventional databases,
do not have a central data store or administration feature. Each
node in a distributed ledger processes and verifies each item,
resulting in a record of each item and a consensus on its
veracity. Static data, such as a register, and dynamic data, such Fig. 2. Block chain
as transactions, can also be tracked using a distributed ledger.
978-1-6654-0670-3/22/31.00© 2022IEEE The blockchain network has no central authority, making

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it a truly democratic system. The knowledge in it is avail- III. EXISTING SYSTEM
able to everyone and everybody because it is a shared and
permanent ledger. So, everything installed on the blockchain
The common procedures in a national voting system, from
is transparent by definition. All involved is held responsible
casting ballots to delivering them to the right person to
for their behaviour. As a result, blockchain offers a stable
announcing the election winner. As a result, these steps in
information transmission platform while also increasing the
the voting process are figured out here.
overall productivity and speed of the entire evoting system.
figure 1.2 shows basic structure of an blockchain. In order to vote, the voter must have some basic authen-
tication. looking at many criteria, such as whether the voter
is over the age of 18 and resides in the same constituency,
II. RELATED WORKS
and so on. The authentication can then be done in a variety of
Because the future scope of this sector is very big, stud- ways, such as matching a person’s voter id, Adhar card, and
ies based on blockchain and applications of blockchain in voting list. The identification of a person in an online voting
other fields have been rapidly developing in recent years. system cannot be done by directly checking the individual
So, based on the research review, discovered that electronic at a polling location. There are variety of technologies to
voting systems and supply chains are the sectors where authenticate a person, including biometric authentications such
blockchain experimentation began. So this paper interested as fingerprints and iris scans, as well as facial recognition.
in the flaws in the existing system and how they may be They can vote by going immediately to the polling location
addressed with blockchain technology. is discussed in the on the voting day at his preferred time after authentication in
paper [1]They emphasised the necessity of voting first, then a normal voting. At each polling place, voters were validated
different types of mistrust that can arise during voting.They by presenting their identification and having it checked by
focused their literature review on several publications, and the designated individuals. They can use a voting machine to cast
major substance shared in those papers was also discussed. their vote by picking a candidate from a list of candidates,
They presented a model of the actual voting system and the and the vote will be recorded by the machine. After the voting
process with a figure, and presented a tidy graphic of the period has ended, the machines are securely collected, and the
new block chain voting mechanism and how it works. The results are recorded and released in such a way that results
discussion then moved on to the many types of blockchain from single polling stations are counted and published first,
and how they differ, as well as different hashing functions followed by results from separate polling stations within a
and blockchain characteristics. The major procedures in the single constituency. The nationwide result was revealed after
blockchain component are creating a block, sealing it with a counting and recording results from various constituencies.
hash code, and then creating a merkle tree to count votes from In a typical setting, there are numerous opportunities to
various polling stations. One of the most important aspects of expose the voting system’s security.
security is the hashing method; in this case, they used the
SHA256 algorithm. As a result, the paper [7] was really help-
ful in understanding more basic ideas regarding blockchain
IV. PROPOSED SYSTEM
and how it works. The key benefits they supplied through
their model. Based on the investigation, it was discovered that
the ethereum framework is more convenient. So the paper [2] The proposed voting mechanism allows voters to cast their
as a reference for a better understanding of this framework. ballots via the internet. A user interface site will be avail-
With the capability of smart contracts, the Ethereum network able for casting vote. Voters may enter voter ids and other
allows for a wider range of applications. Many apps that information on this site. Face recognition or biometrix can be
would ordinarily require a web server can be executed without used to ensure authenticity. It’s a well-known tool for verifying
one using these smart contracts. As a result, manipulating or a voter’s identity. This paper will mainly concentrating on
harming the source codes of the desired software is extremely how the data from casting votes should be saved and how
difficult, if not impossible. They explored the implementation the system should be secured at the data level. By picking
of smartcontracts in to detail using Solidity language, which a candidate and pressing the cast vote button, voters can cast
helped readers better grasp how smartcontracts function and their vote. The site’s backend is tied to a smartcontract that has
how ethers is transported across the network.The execution of been expressly designed for election. As a result, this smart
an Ethereum smart contract is restricted by a gas limit. As contract checks all conditions and criteria. The smart contract
long as there is gas available, the execution will continue. As works in the background for each vote, and if any criteria are
a result, gas is a valuable resource that an attacker can use not met by the voter, they unable to cast a vote. Every vote is
to cause undesirable behaviour in a victim’s smart contract. saved as a transaction by the smart contract. and the specifics
so paper [20]primarily assists me in learning more about gas of each transaction are stored in a block chain as ad blocks. It
and ethereum transactions. In Ethereum, the computation fuel is already know that block chains are secure and offer a variety
is gas. Gas, which is traded with the Ether cryptocurrency, is of features that have been discussed. The image depicts the
charged for each completed instruction. operation of the entire blockvoting system.

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 Fig. 3. Working of voting system

)
Fig. 4. working of blockvoting
Fig. 5. Remix IDE

2) Metamask: The Metamask addon for Google Chrome is

the next requirement. Users must connect to the blockchain in
In this diagram, a voter can register on the site by entering
order to utilise it (since the blockchain is a network). To use
their name, voter id, Adhar card number, and constituency.
the Ethereum block chain, voters will need to install a special
These facts will aid in determining whether or not a voter
browser extension. Metamask comes to the rescue in this
is legitimate. After logging in, they can cast a vote and
situation. With voters personal account, voter’s will be able to
immediately verify that the vote was input correctly (through
connect to local Ethereum blockchain and communicate with
candidate count checking). The vote will be saved as blocks
smart contract. The Metamask chrome addon is what voter’s
in the backend. As a result, there is no need for a separate
using. To install Metamask, visting the Google Chrome online
database.
store and look for the Metamask Chrome plugin. When it’s
installed, a fox icon will be visible in the upper right corner
of Chrome browser.
for connecting of metamask to ganache As a first step, a
custom RPC was added to establish the connection. As a result,
the RPC server address received from ganache and a network
V. TOOLS USED id provided by ganache are used. Voters will connect to the
new RPC after constructing a custom RPC. With 100 ethers
available, the ganache account can be imported to metamask.

1) Remix IDE: The Remix IDE is a component of the

Remix Project, which provides a platform for plugin-based
development tools. Remix Plugin Engine, Remix Libs, and, of
course, Remix-IDE are all part of this project.The Remix IDE
is a sophisticated open source application that allows users
to construct Solidity contracts directly in users browser. It is
written in JavaScript and can be used in the browser, locally
in the browser, or on a desktop computer. The Remix IDE is
a web tool for writing, debugging, and deploying Ethereum
Smart Contracts. This application can be used to create Smart
Contracts. Fig. 6. metamask

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 3) Ganache: Ganache is a blockchain that runs entirely in
memory. It will provide us with 10 external accounts with
Ethereum addresses on the local blockchain. Each account
comes with 100 ethers. Each project will be divided into six
sections. Accounts, blocks, transactions, contracts, events, and
logs are all types of data. Each account’s details are put to the
account section. For each project, initially have ten accounts
available; each account has its own address and index, making
it easier to distinguish between them.The amount of balance
in each account, as well as the number of transactions made
by the account, help to understand transaction information.
Fig. 8. Ganache initial accounts
Each account has a private key, which is a one-of-a-kind key
associated with the account and aids with the import of the Metamask accounts are imported as voters from the ganache
account to other networks. Because voters can’t use the same accounts, with each voter starting with 100 ethers. The link be-
private key to create two accounts, this private key can be used tween metamask and ganache is accomplished by developing a
to authenticate the account. new custom RPC called ”demo”. Metamask is connected using
the ganaches provided network id and RPC server address.
The accounts are then imported into the metamask using their
unique security codes. Each account is treated as a single voter.

Fig. 7. Ganache

The section blocks provide a user-friendly block chain view

that includes all transacted blocks. Because block 0 is the Fig. 9. voters are connected to metamask
genesis block, it will be available at first. Block 1 will be
The creation of five voters, asia, ardra, arshin, divya, and
generated following the first transaction. Details of each block
divya k, as depicted in the diagram above.examination of all
can be obtained. Each block can contain information like
these accounts to see if they were connected to the smart
as the block number, the gas utilised for the transaction,
contract using Metamask done. Now, voting is done through
the gaslimit, the block hash, and so on. More details about
a specific account called ardra, which is linked to remix IDE,
will stored transaction section, which stores the contents of
and the smartcontract that was compiled and deployed. Every
the transaction after hashing as well as additional mining
smart contract that is running will result in one vote, which is
information. Ganache has the ability to mine the blocks on its
a transaction that uses some ether. The amount of ether traded
own. The truffle project’s solidity contracts have been added
is usually determined by the amount of gas and the value of
to the section contracts. It includes a contract for the system’s
the gas. As a result, the value of each transaction is 0.0873
operation as well as a migration contract for migrating data.
ethers by default.

A. IMPLEMENTATION
Every project in Ganache gets ten accounts assigned to it
by default. Each account has a unique address that can be
used to identify it, as well as a unique index. The number of
transactions will start at zero and will be increased by one for
each transaction made on a particular account, allowing the
total number of transactions to be calculated. The amount of
ether will be reduced according on the transaction. So, in this
diagram, it shows that 25 transactions were completed using
the first account, totaling 100 ethers, resulting in a 0 ethers
balance. Fig. 10. Voter Ardra connected for voting

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 The diagram above shows how metamask is linked to the VI. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
remix IDE via a voter named ardra. It will also give you a This section discusses, Different criteria for good election
sense of how metamask will display the number of ethers in system and how it satisfied using current system.
each account. The voter can only use one transaction from
their account at a time. So, the ethers used from account ardra A. Voting can be done only by authorized voters
must be set to maximum. As a result, they will only be able to It is possible to authenticate each voter by supplying a
vote once. So, with metamask, users can adjust the amount of security code.
gas and the gasvalue, bringing the total ethers for a single
transaction down to 99.9 ethers. The diagram depicts how
increased the number of ethers used in a single transaction
to 99.9

change gaslimit 99.png

Fig. 11. changing amount of ether for transaction

Ardra, a voter, voted with 99.9 ethers via a smartcontract

named election. The smartcontract is used to cast the vote. As
a result, the transaction should include a confirmation message Fig. 14. different security code for accounts
informing the voter that their vote has been saved to the block
chain. As depicted in this diagram, a confirmation message One of the most important aspects of E-voting is voter
will appear after voting. authentication. Identity cards can be used, but biometric identi-
fications such as finger prints and iris scans, facial recognition,
and so on are more secure. It can be used for voting, but it
is expensive, so we use a security code for authentication.
Every voter account has a unique security key that is issued
by ganache. So, they can only vote through that account after
connecting Metamask with the security code. As a result, the
authentication operation is completed, as indicated in Figure.
B. An authorized voter can vote only once
The second crucial stipulation for voting is that each voter
can only vote once. because they won’t be able to vote again,
and a large number of ballots were cast by different intruders
Fig. 12. voting done
So, after authenticating himself, they can log into the system
and vote using a smart contract. When they tries to vote again,
the amount of ether available will be insufficient. The default
Block 0 of a block is known as the genesis block since it value of ethers for voting has been changed from.00873 to
has no previous hash value associated with it. So, in Ganache, 99.9 ethers. It is accomplished by altering the gas value and
the initial block, block 0, is built by default, and then the data quantity so that ethers for a single transaction become 99.9.
is recorded in the blockchain as blocks after each voting. As The voter Ardra attempted a second vote, but the transaction
a result, some block construction is indicated in this diagram. failed due to a lack of gas. The diagram below depicts how
Block chain mining is an important tool for detecting data the transaction ends when there is no more ether available for
changes. It is done via automining in ganache. another transaction attempted by voter ardra.

Fig. 13. Votes stored as block Fig. 15. insufficient ether for transaction

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C. Nobody should be able to determine to whom a voter has made in a block that is checked by the mining authority. If
cast their vote. the value of any block is altered by itruder, the hash value
The details of the casting vote should be kept in a secure and prior hash value of the next block will be incorrect.
manner. Otherwise, anyone can be able to figure out who voted So, for easy analysis, Ganache in a time interval is used,
for which candidates. It is not an appropriate election criterion. which is referred to as auto-mining.So, in this blockvoting
Due to that reason, in blockvoting, the data should be stored system, changing any data without detection is impossible. As
as private and inaccessible to people. So, it is kept in blocks a consequence, this automining protects the data stored in the
that are secured using cryptographic methods. As a result, the block chain.
diagram depicts how data details are saved and mined over
time to ensure data security.

Fig. 18. auto mining done

Fig. 16. Data stored in blocks F. Every voter can transparently cross-check his vote and
ensure that his vote has been counted.
D. The vote of a voter cannot be duplicated.
Every contender’s vote count is accessible at the user
Ganache accounts are imported as voters, and the metamask interface because it is treated as public data, allowing voters
is linked to ganache. It’s done with the help of security keys to check whether or not their vote was cast for the candidate
that come with each account. users can’t import two voters of their choice. and he can see who is in the lead with how
with the same security key in order to avoid voter duplication. many votes in the current circumstance. As a result, the entire
In the example, the account had already been added to the system is transparent to the voter.
metamask once, and it was attempted to add another voter
using the same private key, but it was unsuccessful. Figure
G. Everyone knows who voted in the election and who did
shows the warning indicating that no duplication is permitted.
not.

Fig. 17. duplication not allowed

Fig. 19. voters after transaction
E. Nobody can modify votes without being detected.
Blockchain mining involves adding transactions to the ex- It is possible to directly check whether a voter voted or
isting blockchain ledger of transactions distributed among all not by checking Ganache. The number of transactions will be
users of a blockchain. While mining is mostly associated updated to one if a voter votes. The amount of ether is likewise
with bitcoin, other technologies using a blockchain employ decreasing. As a result, this is a way for determining whether
mining as well. Mining involves creating a hash of a block or not someone has voted.Different accounts, for example, are
of transactions that cannot be easily forged, protecting the connected in the diagram and have cast their votes. Different
integrity of the entire blockchain without the need for a central amounts of ether are used for different transactions, resulting
system.Mining is a way for understanding any modifications in transactions being kept with less ether.

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