Electronic Voting Machine

Project Outline

In general, the EVM consists of two units that can be interlinked. A ballot unit, which a voter uses to exercise his vote. And the other, a control unit used by the polling officials. But the EVM prepared by us is totally automated. MCU is acting as the Polling Officer in this EVM. Ballot Unit It consists of a 16x2 LCD and IR LEDs. LCD displays the name of the post and candidates for which voting is going on IR LEDs are used as touch switches. For anything which you have to select, put your figure just above the option where it is being displayed on the LCD.

Control Unit

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It consists of an MCU and a 7 keys keypad. MCU stores the program, run it, and also stores the data given by voters. We have made a keypad, which can be used to input the name of Posts and the Candidates. By using this we will not have to program the machine each time before any election. One can enter the name of posts and candidates just before the election. This can also prevent programming the EVM to favor any particular candidate.

The Electronic Voting Machine

An Electronic Marvel. Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) retains all the characteristics of voting by ballot papers while making polling a lot more expedient. Being fast and absolutely reliable, the EVM saves considerable time, money, and manpower. And, of course, helps maintain total voting secrecy without the use of ballot papers. The EVM is 100 percent tamper-proof. And, at the end of the polling, just press a button and there you have the results.

Description: Electronic voting machine has now days become an effective tool for voting.

It ensures flawless voting and thus has become more widespread. It ensures people about their vote being secured. It avoids any kind of malpractice and invalid votes. Also such kind of system becomes more economical as the consequent expenditure incurred on manpower is saved. It is also convenient on the part of the voter, as he has to just press one key whichever belongs to his candidates. Voting machines are the total combination of mechanical, electromechanical, or electronic equipment (including software, firmware, and documentation required to program control, and support equipment), that is used to define ballots; to cast and count votes; to report or display election results, and to maintain and produce any audit trail information.

The first voting machines were mechanical but it is increasingly more common to use electronic voting machines. A voting system includes the practices and associated documentation used to identify system components and versions of such components; to test the system during its development and maintenance; to maintain records of system errors or defects; to determine specific changes made after initial certification; and to make available any materials to the voter (such as notices, instructions, forms, or paper ballots). Traditionally, a voting machine has been defined by the mechanism the system uses to cast votes and further categorized by the location where the system tabulates the votes. Voting machines have different levels of usability, security, efficiency, and accuracy. Certain systems may be more or less accessible to all voters, or not accessible to those voters with certain types of disabilities. They can also have an effect on the public's ability to oversee elections.

SUMMARY

The electronic voting machine has now replaced the traditional mechanism of voting due to several advantages like security, automatic counting, etc. This project presents a way to develop an electronic voting machine which displays the count of votes on a 16x2 LCD interface. A user can get his/her vote register through a set of switches (one for each candidate). After every cast of the vote, the subsequent count can be seen on LCD. The circuit uses the AT89C51 microcontroller and the code for the project has been written in C.

DESCRIPTION

This LCD based electronic voting machine is designed for four candidates. The input part consists of a set of six tactile switches. The switches and 16x2 LCD are interfaced with microcontroller AT89C51 for various operations and displays. The provision of casting votes for the candidates has been provided through four of these switches. These switches are made active high and connected to pins 2-5 (P1^1 – P1^4) of the controller. The remaining two switches (both active low) are to start and stop the voting procedure. They are connected to pins 1 and 6 (P1^0 and P1^5) respectively.

The Init (start) switch initializes the voting system when pressed, while the Stop switch ends the voting and displays the poll results on the LCD screen. For more details on working with LCD, refer to LCD interfacing with 8051. The data pins of the LCD (pins 7-14) are connected to the output port P2 of the microcontroller. The control pins (RS, R/W, and EN) are connected to port P3 pins P3^0, P3^1; P3^6 respectively. Working: The voting is started by pressing the Init switch after which the user is prompted to vote. The count of votes is stored in four different variables. As soon as the user votes for a candidate by pressing one of the switches, the value of the corresponding variable is increased by one. After this a Thank, your message is displayed on LCD to acknowledge the registration of the user’s vote. The message stays on the screen until the next user either presses the Init button to cast another vote or the Stop switch is pressed get the poll results. When the stop button is pressed, the names of the candidates are displayed along with their vote counts. After some delay, the result is displayed which could be either declaration of the winner candidate or the candidates with a clash of their number of votes.

PRESET

A preset is a three-legged electronic component which can be made to offer varying resistance in a circuit. The resistance is varied by adjusting the rotary control over it. The adjustment can be done by using a small screwdriver or a similar tool. The resistance does not vary linearly but rather varies in an exponential or logarithmic manner. Such variable resistors are commonly used for adjusting sensitivity along with a sensor. The variable resistance is obtained across the single terminal at the front and one of the two other terminals. The two legs at the back offer fixed resistance which is divided by the front leg. So whenever only the back terminals are used, the present acts as a fixed resistor. Presets are specified by their fixed value resistance. Flash programmable and erasable read-only memory (PEROM) and 128 bytes of RAM. It can be erased and program to a maximum of 1000 times. In 40 pin AT89C51, there are four ports designated as P1, P2, P3, and P0. All these ports are 8-bit bi-directional ports, i. e. , they can be used as both input and output ports. Except for P0 which needs external pull-ups, the rest of the ports have internal pull-ups.

When 1s are written to these port pins, they are pulled high by the internal pull-ups and can be used as inputs. These ports are also bit addressable and so their bits can also be accessed individually. Port P0 and P2 are also used to provide low byte and high byte addresses, respectively, when connected to external memory. Port 3 has multiplexed pins for special functions like serial communication, hardware interrupts, timer inputs, and read/write operation from external memory. AT89C51 has an inbuilt UART for serial communication. In this LCD each character is displayed in a 5x7 pixel matrix. This LCD has two registers, namely, Command and Data. The command register stores the command instructions given to the LCD. A command is an instruction given to LCD to do a predefined task like initializing it, clearing its screen, setting the cursor position, controlling the display, etc. The data register stores the data to be displayed on the LCD. The data is the ASCII value of the character to be displayed on the LCD. Click to learn more about the internal structure of an LCD.

APPLICATIONS & ADVANTAGES

Fast track voting which could be used in small scale elections, like resident welfare association, panchayat level election, and other society-level elections. It could also be used to conduct opinion polls during the annual shareholders meeting. It could also be used to conduct general assembly elections where the number of candidates is less than or equal to eight in the current situation. It could be used at places where there is no electricity as the thing is operational with the help of a simple 5-volt battery. It could well become a fine example of using environment-friendly resources as there is no need for having lakhs of ballot papers as was used in the older system of voting. It involves very little time for a voter to actually cast its vote, unlike conventional methods where it becomes very cumbersome to handle ballot papers. It is more fast and reliable.

FUTURE SCOPE

The number of candidates could be increased by using other microcontrollers or an 8255 IC. It could be interfaced with a printer to get the hard copy of the result almost instantly from the machine itself. It could also be interfaced with the personal computer and the result could be stored in the central server and its backup could be taken on the other backend servers. Again, once the result is on the server it could be relayed on the network to various offices of the election conducting authority. Thus our project could make the result available any corner of the world in a matter of seconds In days of using nonpolluting and environment-friendly resources of energy, it could pose a very good example.

Reference

1. Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillispie Mazidi, Rolin D. Mckinlay. Second edition, THE 8051 MICROCONTROLLER, AND EMBEDDED SYSTEM
2. K. J. Ayala. Third edition, MICROCONTROLLER
3. Millman & Halkias. INTEGRATED ELECTRONICS.
4. http://www.wikipedia.com
5. http://www.8051microcontrollerprojects. com
6. www.datasheet4u.com
7. www.rickeyasworld.com
8. http://seminarprojects. com/Thread-electronic-voting-machine-project-full-report#ixzz2RD8Xd1cO

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