Final stages of eVote

Our team is already completing the 3rd phase of eVote. The hardware is complete and fully functional.

The remaining items to be completed are elements from the administrator application. Currently we are trying to find out how to acquire printing results from the printer once eVote has printed a receipt.

The scalability is also almost complete.

At this pace, we will have everything done in time for the third happy hour December 1, 2008.

Write-in Module

The writing module code has been written and today I met with Javier to test the data on the evote prototype device. While testing we found errors with pointers , but this was fixed by reviewing how to work with pointers in C.
The write in screen currently supports keypad navigation and selection of letters.
Errors have been seen when typing letter and backspaces and when moving through the alphabet (the selected action happens twice).
The write in module successfully returns the array of the write in information.

Database Dummy Data

JSAL has recently completed populating our database with dummy data, to simulate the scenario in a real life situation. The following tables were affected: Kiosk, Voter, and Official. We estimated how much data were to be put in the tables, based on real statistics:

Real Data:

• Kiosks: 35,200 [1]
• Registered Voters: 2,458,036 [2]

Dummy Data:

• Kiosks: 35,360
• Voters: 2,400,006
• Officials: 20,800

[1] http://www.ceepur.org/sobreCee/presidencia/juntaSubasta/PDF/CONVOCATORIA%20A%20LICITAR%2009-02%20MALETINES%20CASETAS.pdf
[2] http://www.ceepur.org/elecciones2008/index.html

Schedule Changes & Evote device program size limit

Due to an unforeseen Academic Recess (from Thursday, October 31 to Thursday, November 5) several Capstone course activities have been re-scheduled. There will not be a status report on Friday, November 6 since there has not been enough work days since the last presentation. Also, the Oral Test scheduled for next Monday, November 10 has been rescheduled for Monday, November 17.

In addition, several changes have been added to the Change Control document as the debugging program Javier is using for all programming related to the evote machine is beggining to signal that the program is reaching the 4kb limit.

Progress Report and Design Changes document

JSAL prepared a design change document and provided a copy to the client (the capstone professors). The document provided the changes desired by the client to include a write-in feature within the firmware of eVote. The document also pointed out that additional funds may be necessary due to the added feature, but due to time constraints, the feature will be completed by clocking in additional hours and this will be reflected in future progress reports.

The keyboard was successfully integrated with the microprocessor and was able to navigate between two different screens. The security of the database data has also progressed to finding a 128 bit encryption method that uses a password that will be used to decrypt the database parameters when being called upon in the administrator program.

The screen for the write-in has been designed and implemented, but the navigational code has yet to be implemented and will be worked on after the progress report presentation.

The screens of eVote have been implemented except for the ballots for the governor and resident commisioner which will be worked on after the progress report due to the fact that these screens have images on them that require additional work to calculate their pixel positions.

LCD Screens, Navigation keypad and Database security

The team is working with the tasks for the second phase of the project. Laura is working with the write-in screen. In order to design the screen, a table is being used to establish the coordinates in which a letter will appear. Javier is working with the screens for voting. These screens include language selection, integral or mixed voting selection as well as write in option selection. Angel is working with the encryption and decryption of the information stored in the database. Sylvia is working with the keypad for navigation. Yesterday Sylvia and Javier tested the keypad to look at the output voltage from each of the pressed keys. The keypad regulates the input voltage to have an output voltage of 3V. Therefore, there is no need to have a voltage regulator. Sylvia, Javier and Laura are working with dependent modules from one another; therefore before start working the design was discussed.

Below a picture of the keypad testing

Lcd screens and navigation

During the day the team discussed feedback from friday's happy hour sessions. The day's work revolved around:

1. "Write-In" in-depth design : Write in screen has been designed and code is currently being made for displaying it on the LCD

2. Language selection in-depth design: Design began for the way in which the program handles language selection on the code level

3. Overview of Keyboard navigation

4. LCD matrix table (Excel): This table is being used to design the different screens (see image below)