eSlate Demo

I found this interesting demo for an electronic voting system. Some of the things I liked were: the way they authenticate the voter (with an access code) and the fact that you can do a "write in" vote on the screen. What I didnt like at all about this was the "wheel" key. It became tedious after a while (specially when I had to spell the name of a "write in").


http://www.eslate.com/files/eSlate.swf

Software Design and Visit to the Electoral Commission in Mayaguez

Today our team went off to downtown mayaguez to visit the electoral commission and acquire more research. When we arrived we met with a representative who was very helpful and provided many brochures and documents to help us understand what is needed of voters to register. The team also acquired a poster fold-out of the voting process divided in steps.

-A Photo of the outside of the commission's office-

Our team began the software design research and divided the different sections of the project among the team members. We decided to set a progress report for Friday evening to see how everyone has progressed and if any additional research is required.

After Completing the Software design, we will move on to the Hardware design. In hardware design, the team already has in mind what is needed for the design but decided to focus on one area of the project at a time.

We are doing design separately for the 3 big areas of the project:

1. Registration
2. Voting
3. Counting

Each area has its own software and hardware involved to complete the voting experience.

Hardware brainstorming and Researching

Today the team got together to brainstorm the voting procedure and consider hardware available in the market for our project.

We have agreed to meet tomorrow at 10:30 am to go the downtown mayaguez to get more information about the "Comision estatal de Elecciones"

We also called Angel Perez from Rock Solid to coordinate a meeting with him about our project.

Our biggest conflict is the budget since the color lcds are quite expensive so we are searching for economic products.

We also brainstormed with Dani Santiago about our project and different things we should consider for our project, like scaling it down.

Link regarding Fingerprint Readers

I wanted to share some information I've found while researching Fingerprint Scanners/Readers. More information to come later on this same post.

Types of Fingerprint Scanners: http://www.tech-faq.com/fingerprint-scanners.shtml

Interfacing with Microsoft Fingerprint Reader: http://blogs.msdn.com/coding4fun/archive/2007/03/06/1815291.aspx


Interesting Article about fooling fingerprint scanners with Play-Doh: http://www.engadget.com/2005/12/11/play-doh-fingers-can-fool-90-of-scanners-sez-clarkson-u/

Fingerprint Scanners available for purchase (prices range from $15 to ~$500)

http://www.google.com/products?hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-US&resnum=0&q=Fingerprint%20scanners&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wf

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834995509

Touch Screen and Encryption Links with corresponding research descriptions

Research for LCD Touch Screens

• The touch screen panels go over the LCD screen so they are two different entities. We would need to program the images on the LCD and have the display change as the touch panel is touched. Consider adding a backlight to allow a better view of the screen
  
• Please note that touch screen panels are sold as components–a controller is required to provide the interface between the touchscreen and the computer (or device).

Links

• 1. Low power and cheap touch screen. Has data sheet on page as well which shows the microcontroller that it comes with to program the screen.
  
  http://www.elotouch.com/Technologies/AT4/default.asp
  
• 2. How to design the layers of an LCD touch screen and other factors that affect the view of the screen.
  
  http://www.fujitsu.com/us/news/inthenews/fcai_20030701.html
  
  
• 3. Describes how the touch panel converts a flat screen into a dynamic interface. Also discusses the different kinds of touch screen technologies and how they each work (has an extensive table comparing screends and their corresponding controllers!!!):
  
  **I think the resistive is the best way to go since it seems to be the cheapest and mostly used.
  
  http://svconline.com/mag/avinstall_lcd_touchpanel_controllers/
  
  
• 4. Touch panel product, large screen, comes with the kit.
  
  http://www.advantech.com/products/84-LCD-Kit-MTH-450-nites-TTL-SVGA/mod_1-2JKIPU.aspx
  
  http://www.advantech.com/products/Display-Solutions/sub_1-2JKFJN.aspx
  
• 5. Touch screens can also be bought separately and installed to work with just about any type of computer. Discusses parameters to consider when designing a touch screen.
  
  http://www.industrial101.com/equipment/touch-screens.aspx?ovraw=lcd+touch+screen&ovkey=lcd+touchscreens&ovmtc=advanced&ovadid=31308152011&ovkwid=231837151011
  
• 6. An additional site with more LCD screens
  http://www.densitron.com/Displays/
  

---------------------------Encryption Research-------------------------------

**We need to decide a programming language so that we can focus on a particular method the encryption is done in that language.

Links

• 1. A book that teachings encryption based on public key techniques and etc. Only the person who knows the public key can decrypt the information. This is used for emails as well. People who send and receive mail can encrypt an email and only a person with the public key can decrypt it, but they will not be able to encrypt a message using the sends technique. (More research will be done to learn the different ways to encrypt and decrypt information.
  
  http://www.amazon.com/Cryptography-Demystified-John-Hershey/dp/0071406387/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219713914&sr=8-1
  
• 2. The standards used in data encryption:
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Encryption_Standard
  
  http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci213893,00.html
  
  

E-Voting System...

Here's are some useful links regarding the general overview of the e-voting system and biometrics.

Articles

• Title: "Aussies Do It Right: E-Voting"
• Link: http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2003/11/61045?currentPage=1
• Title: "How E-voting Works"
• Link: http://people.howstuffworks.com/e-voting.htm
• Title: "How Fingerprint Scanners Work"
• Link: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/fingerprint-scanner5.htm

Vendor/Products

• Vendor: Biometrics Direct
• Link: http://www.biometricsdirect.com/index.htm
• Product: BioCert® Authenticator Toolkit
• Link: http://www.biocert.us/BioCertFREE.htm

Capstone Project Approved

After giving our presentation on the "E.S.P.", the professor's Fernando and Nayda gave us feedback and suggestions on new project ideas. After all was discussed, everyone agreed that an "Electronic Voting System" would be an ideal project for our group. Now that our project approval is official, each team member is doing extensive research on the following topics:

- Previous/similar e-voting systems
- Voting process and trends in Puerto Rico
- Managing usability of the system for all age groups
- Understanding the funcionality of every device involved in the system and incorporating them as a whole.