Development of blockchain technology-based e-voting system: A case study of high Institute of computer and management of Goma

Abstract

Nowadays, computer systems allow to build more powerful and more efficient systems, focused on the enhancement of some manuals operations by using digital technologies. Voting process is very challenging in most of Africa‘s countries, because is characterized by many contestations after election. General elections still use a centralized system through one organization that manages it. Some of the problems that can occur in traditional electoral systems is with an organization that has full control over the database and system, it is possible to tamper with the database in considerable opportunities and, implies the failed of overall voting process. Blockchain technology is one of solutions, because it embraces a decentralized system, and the entire database are owned by many users. Blockchain itself has been used in the Bitcoin system known as the decentralized Bank system. By adopting blockchain in the distribution of databases on e-voting systems can reduce one of the cheating sources of database manipulation. The contribution of this work is to give a way for implementing a Blockchain-based e-voting system in the DRC‘s context. Precisely, it allows building an e-voting system based on the Ethereum Blockchain to be used on a narrow scope of an election process in a University (The target case study is the High Institute of Computer and Management of Goma). This evoting system significantly improves users' (Voters) anonymity, guards against fraud in voting, and allows voters to cast ballots from anywhere (At home, at the polls, abroad, etc.). The benefit of this work in comparison with the actual voting system is the improvement of the entire voting system, and the possibility to use the same voting system for a whole province / region or country