Web 2.
0 e-Voting System using Android Platform
César R. K. Stradiotto, Ângela I. Zotti, Cláudia O.
Bueno, Sonali P. M. Bedin, Hugo C. Hoeschl
Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia e Gestão do
Conhecimento - PPGEGC
Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, UFSC
Florianópolis – Brasil
{cesar.stradiotto, iara.zotti, claudia.bueno, sonali.bedin,
hch}@i3g.org.br
Abstract— This paper describes two experiences: The first
experiment, called International Direct Digital Election (ID2E), is
made for testing the viability for the international voting by
mobiles using SMS protocol, using Web 2.0 tools to facilitate
discussions about the election main theme. The second experiment
is the construction of a voting prototype using Android platform
smart phones, with applications and vote collecting databases
available on web servers. The two experiments are part of a
proposed e-Voting methodology, and were made with the final
objective of surveying scenarios about international voting
processes, to give some experimental base for future e-Voting
projects at international level.
Keywords- e-Voting System, Android, Web Services,
International Direct Digital Election, ID2E
I. INTRODUCTION
With the appearance of cell phones with programmable
platform, it is possible the development of application for
worldwide popular participation, by the digital vote using
mobiles. According to [1], the ITU - International
Telecommunication Union estimates that in the world there
already exists approximately 4.9 billion cell phones in 2009,
reaching 5 billion in 2010. In [2] it is revealed that there is a
raising interest for voting on SMS cell phones, and through
social networking tools like Facebook or Twitter. It´s believed
that the voting process by cell phones give some decision
power to the citizens, which can actuate directly on decisions of
their concerns. The voting process also can give ways for
numerical information surveillance about social phenomena.
For this reason, the following research is being developed with
the intention to survey future scenarios which can occur during
the international voting process by mobile devices. The
experiment has two steps: The first step refers to the voting
process with the SMS protocol, using Web 2.0 tools to help on
information exchange during the voting process, and the second
step is the construction of a prototype system which allows
users of Android platform smart phones send their votes
directly to web services, for its computation, also allowing
these users to exchange information by a discussion list,
Tânia C. D. Bueno, Thiago P. S. Oliveira
Instituto de e-Gov, Inteligências e Sistemas – i3G
Florianópolis – Brasil
{tania.bueno, vinicius.mirapalheta,
thiago.paulo}@i3g.org.br
Vinícius O. Mirapalheta
Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências da Computação –
Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, UFSC
Florianópolis – Brasil
vinicius.mirapalheta@i3g.org.br
accessible from the given device. This paper is divided in eight
parts: This section describes the intention to create an electronic
voting process using mobile telephony, given the emergent
opportunity of programmable platform of Google Android
smart phones. Section II describes previous jobs about e-Voting
systems. Section III describes the first part of the experience:
The International Direct Digital Elections (ID2E), with help of
Web 2.0 tools to communicate the main theme for elections
between voters and interested people. Section IV describes the
second part of the experience: The construction of a prototype
system for e-Voting, and a discussion list to use from inside
Android smart phones, and a Web service for vote tally
information. Section V presents the results from the two
experiences. Section VI presents the conclusions. Section VII
presents the intentions for future work. At the end it is
presented the consulted references.
II. PREVIOUS WORK
The first experience which serves as a foundation for this
research is the implementation of the electronic ballot-box in
Brazil, in 1996. According to [3], in 1985 an automated
electoral register was installed by the Tribunal Superior
Eleitoral (of Brazil), and the electronic ballot was developed in
1995, and used by the first time on the municipal elections of
1996, inside the country. In 1989, on city of Brusque, Santa
Catarina, Brazil, it was realized the first voting experience with
micro-computers. The electronic ballot-box, initially called
electronic vote collector (EVC), had the objective of identifying
the alternatives for automation of the voting process, and for
defining the necessary measures to its implantation, from the
elections to be held in 1996, in more than fifty Brazilian cities.
In [4] is described the FREE e-DEMOCRACY Project,
developed with open code, on Java language, for the
implementation of e-Voting systems. In [5] is presented a
project of an e-Voting system to be accessed via Wireless
Application Protocol (WAP), Short Message Service (SMS)
and Hyper Text Transport Protocol (HTTP). In [6] is described
an e-Voting platform, specified with a Universal Modeling
Language variant: The Mobile-UML (M-UML), from the same
authors. This platform considers the recommendations of
Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents - FIPA [7], to allow
interoperability between agents which work on different
platforms. In this platform, the voters deposit their votes on
their own personal computers, while a mobile device pass close
those machines and collect their stored votes, under the
coordination of a management software working in a stationary
server. In [8] is presented a taxonomy of e-Voting systems, and
like in [5], the authors present requirements for the project and
implementation of e-Voting systems. In [9] it is described a
local e-Voting system which eliminates physical ballot-boxes,
reducing costs and efforts, and consequently being less time
consuming. In [10] it is described an experimentation about e-
Voting by cell phones, by SMS protocol, for a focused group of
people, where it is shown the concerning about the fall of Brazil
inside e-Gov and Information Technology (IT) international
classifications, in 2008. The process was done with five
objectives: 1) diagnose the reasons for the fall; 2) identify
possible actions looking for better performance on the next
classifications; 3) detail on the discussion about technological
themes inside organizational environments; 4) test the SMS
devices with different regional telephonic codes in many
geographic regions; 5) evaluate performance and efficacy of
different telephonic operators over this task.
About the use of Web 2.0 tools to help on supporting the
voting process, HURME [17] – talk about the three main
properties of Web 2.0 to help on diffusion of information on
Barack Obama campaign: viral marketing, user-generated
content, and online-social network. In [18] is presented an
initiative to create a list of Web 2.0 applications on e-
Government. In [22] it is shown results on the gathering process
of 18-35 aged voters, using a national campaign on the Web 2.0
social networks, in Australia, in 2007. The research written
inside this document was developed based on the experimental
research on [10], with some arguments based on [17, 18], and
will be shown on the next items.
III. E-VOTING METHODOLOGY
The developed application described inside this paper was
based on an e-Voting methodology – developed by HOESCHL
[11, 12, 13] – done through the use of cell phones (Electronic
Direct Digital Elections – IDDE or ID2E), and supported by an
organizational methodology (the Web X Strategy, [19]). This
methodology try to evaluate the impact of Web 2.0 social
networks on discussions about the voting main theme, as
explained in [19], evaluate the Web 2.0 social network behavior
on a decision making digital process [12], and evaluate the use
of mobile devices as tools for public decision making. The
project was executed by the Information Society Studies Group
– ISSG, in 2009, linked to the Universidade Federal de Santa
Catarina – UFSC, and the e-Gov, Intelligence and Systems
Institute – i3G [20], both installed inside the city of
Florianópolis – Santa Catarina – Brazil.
The first ID2E was realized between 6 and 20 of November,
in the year of 2009 [14]. The voting process had as basic
question: Is the United Nations accomplishing its mission?
Allowing only positive or negative answers, sent through SMS
protocol. Together with the answer, if the voter wanted, he/she
could send a picture of him/herself to post on Web 2.0 tools like
Picasa, Panoramio or Flickr, or even videos, as is the case for
You Tube.
Figure 1. Interface inside the server cell phone, responsible for the tally of
positive (1-187), negative (2-188), or incorrect (3-1) votes. Picture copied from
[15] and edited.
In [12] has also a voting surveillance by geographic region.
The tally of votes was done inside an application working on
Dot Net platform (Figure 1), inside a server cell phone. The
experimentation is a pilot for future e-Voting system projects,
to be constructed by the i3G. In [21] it was proposed some
initial researches to create e-Voting mobile applications for
Google Android platform.
About the solution on sharing information inside Web 2.0
environments, about the voted theme, there was selected the
following pages: 1) Delicious (delicious.com/) to publish links
related to the experiment; 2) iPetitions (www.ipetitions.com/),
to advice people to the voting process; 3) Twitter (twitter.com/),
and Blogger (siweb20.blogspot.com/start) to the public post
comments favorable or opposite to United Nations; 4) GMail
(https://www.google.com/), and Metajur Discussion List
(br.groups.yahoo.com/group/metajur/) to privately post
comments; 5) Wikipedia
(pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Página_principal), Scribd
(www.scribd.com/siweb20/), and Slideshare
(www.slideshare.net/) to publish reports or presentations
resulting from the discussions about the theme; 6) Skoob
(www.skoob.com.br/) to share books which maybe can give
some historical base to the voting process, and help on
argumentation about the United Nations; 7) Picasa
(picasa.google.com.br/), Flickr (www.flickr.com/), and
Panoramio (www.panoramio.com/) to post pictures (with
geographic position for the two last pages) referred to votes
assumed by the voters; 8) You Tube (www.youtube.com/) to
post videos related to the voters, assuming its votes; 9) Orkut
(https://www.google.com/), and FaceBook
(www.facebook.com/) for the possible formation of social
networks about the specified theme; and 10) Second Life
(secondlife.com/) to simulate the voting process inside virtual
environments.
The selection of such pages was done – first – with the
intention to verify, by natural selection, what pages became the
preferred ones for the communication about the voting process,
among users. The second reason for the selection of these pages
was the intention to generate content for ideas about its usage
inside the system, or its usage inside the voting process. The
group was divided in two teams: One of them would raise
arguments confirming the accomplishment of the role given to Voting data, sent to the dynamic web pages through given
UN, and the second team would raise arguments denying the parameters;
accomplishment of its role. The participation of people was
eVoting Android eVoting Android
direct, needing only the text messages sent by cell phones, Application Discussion List
corresponding to people´s vote. The tallying was made in real Application
time. The result was communicated immediately after the final
time, on 2009, November 20, at 17:00h GMT. ...
...
IV. PROPOSAL OF AN E-VOTING SYSTEM ON GOOGLE
ANDROID J2EE
PHP eV
Servlet eV PHP
Collector
Collector Discussion
A. Some definitions about system clients List
Postgres
To explain the system proposed for the methodology in eVDB
[19], two types of user were defined: The voting citizens (voter
[8], active electorate [9], legit voters [16]), which use the PHP eV
J2EE Postgres
Servlet eV
application available on the smart phones to vote, and the Consultant
Consultant Discussion
consultant users (authority [8], passive electorate [9], election List DB
authority [16]), which use the Web, or smart phone
applications, looking for the tallying of votes. For the
implementation of the application on the smart phones, it was ... ...
assumed that every device is associated to its owner. By this
way, given that a smart phone – used to vote – has its
identification number, and given that there are accredited eV Tallying eV Tallying
databases informing that determined number is associated to a Android Application Web Application
given client, it is for sure that, if the voting system receives a Figure 2. Proposed e-Voting and tallying system, via Android smart phone
vote by a smart phone, it means that the system receives the applications, web services and dynamic web pages
vote from the client owner of the identified mobile device.
3) e-Voting application on Android smart phones To be
possible to an Android smart phone user to vote, an application
B. Experimental work with an interface for consultation to a dynamic web page
For the accomplishment of the e-Voting methodology, (Figure 2) offers the main question to be answered (voted), and
supported by Web 2.0 tools, explained on Section III above, it´s together to this page are available the buttons to send the votes:
being constructed a system skeleton (Figure 2), composed by Yes or No. When the vote has succeeded and is kept on the
two main modules: An e-Voting module, and a Discussion List remote data base, the same application confirms the reception
module, allowing the users interaction – by the mobile – during of this vote, presenting the data – on the language chosen by the
the voting process. user inside the operational system on the Android smart phone
– related to the vote just sent. The vote related data are the
C. E-Voting module following: Users vote; date and time of vote; and in cases where
The e-Voting module is composed by six sub-modules: the smart phone has a GPS, the geographic position of the
Database; Vote collecting web service; e-Voting Android device when the vote was just sent; 4) e-Vote tallying web
application; Web service for tally consultation; Web application services These are services also equivalent, made on PHP (PHP
for tally consultation; and Android application for tally eV Consultant) and Java Servlet (J2EE Servlet eV Consultant)
consultation: languages, which receive the parameters to present the web
page with the voting tally to the interested people (election
1) e-Voting database (eVDB) It is the heart of the system, authority). Like the case above, these services also do exactly
having de voting data collected during the public voting the same thing; 5) e-Vote tallying web application These are
process. Initially it´s composed only by a data-table keeping the applications which read dynamic web pages, to inform to the
following elements: The vote ID for each record; The defined interested people (election authority) about the situation – final,
language for the mobile device when the vote was done; the or in progress – of the voting process. The information can be
smart phone number; The geographic position of the smart available to the consultants – initially – in three languages; 6) e-
phone GPS (latitude and longitude) when the vote was done; Vote tallying Android smart phone application These are
The vote answer (for this experimental case: Yes or No); and applications which access dynamic web pages, via Android
the date and time when the user made his vote; 2) e-Vote smart phones (Fig. 2), to inform to the interested people
collector web-services These services are dynamic pages (election authority) about the situation – final, or in progress –
which receives parameters via Web Browser. Such parameters of the voting process. Like in the web applications, these
feed the voting data base (the eVDB, on Fig. 2). Initially, due to information can also be available to the consultants – initially –
the availability of the two technologies, such services are being in three languages.
implemented together on PHP (PHP eV Collector) and Java
Servlet (J2EE Servlet eV Collector) languages. The services are
not complementary: They do exactly the same thing: collect e-
D. Discussion List Module B. Use of Web 2.0 tools
The discussion list module is composed by three sub- About the use of Web 2.0 tools – to help on organization
modules: 1) Discussion List Data Base This is a simple table and conclusion of the public discussion directed to the main
which contains the data and meta-data referring to the posted question and the voting process – at the end of the
messages by the users. This table contains the following data: experimentation it was observed that few tools were used.
Message ID; Message content; 2) Message Collection Web Among them, the page Delicious received special attention
Service Initially implemented on PHP language, this service because it had the links to the other used pages on the process,
contains a text box for the user to post his messages, and serving as a starting point. Blogger was used because it has
presents a dynamic web page with a list of all messages posted sequential and easy inclusion of information, having linear
on the page; 3) Discussion List Android Application This reading. Flickr gave fast results on insertion of geo-referred
application presents, inside the Android smart phone, the web pictures. iPetitions had sequential inclusion of information, and
page with the message list and the text box to send messages. linear reading, and beyond that it was a page where people
identified the original country of vote. The Metajur discussion
V. RESULTS list (see Section III), to be historically used by the ISSG
students who made the experimentation. The Slideshare was
Here the results are presented in three parts, which will be used to post the presentations during the classes, and finally the
joined in a close future, inside the same system, operated with 3D application Second Life, used to simulate an e-Voting
Android platform cell phones: The results for the e-Voting virtual process with the positioning of avatars on some pre-
experimental method; The initial and still unmeasured results determined virtual places inside a given environment.
for the Web 2.0 tools usage for the voting process; and some
initial implemented prototypes for the given platform. C. About the e-Voting system components
A. About the e-Voting method As an initial result of the prototype system, three
applications were created on Android platform (Figure 3): 1)
The e-Voting application with the interface to send votes, and
TABLE I. VOTING TALLY: “IS THE UN ACCOMPLISHING ITS MISSION?”
presenting the main question for the voting process: Is The UN
SMS Text Answer Quantity Percentage accomplishing its mission?, and the final interface presented to
001 YES 211 46.68% the user with the data sent, after voting; 2) The application to
002 NO 240 53.10% present the tallied votes; and 3) The discussion list available
Null (avoided) votes 1 0.22% from Android smart phones.
Total Votes 452 100.0%

TABLE II. VOTING CORRECTNESS (OR CONFORMANCE) TALLY: “IS THE

UN ACCOMPLISHING ITS MISSION?”
Vote conformance Quantity Percentage
Correct votes 434 96.02%
Incorrect votes
By syntax error 9 1,99%
By unnecessary international code (+55) 9 1,99%
inside country
Total Votes 452 100.0%
Tables 1 and 2 show the results surveyed after the e-Voting
process experimentation: From the 452 votes sent to the server Figure 3. Interfaces of three applications on Android smart phone simulator,
cell phone, 434 had a correct format and were computed by the which access dynamic web pages. From left to right: 1 – e-Voting application;
2 – Tally application; 3 – Discussion list application.
digital ballot box; 18 votes were received via SMS, but weren´t
computed; and just one vote were avoided. From the 18 votes
received via SMS, but not computed, 9 were not because the VI. CONCLUSIONS
voters included the International Code (+55) inside the country
About the client interface, the vote sending through buttons
(Brazil), attached to the server cell phone number, what
– compared to vote sending through keyed short messages –
invalidated the vote, and 9 had a syntax error on the redaction
reduces the number of errors on sending the vote. In case of
of the string to identify the choose of the vote (the two correct
SMS, depending on the type of message to be sent, the
answers should be “001” or “002”, and not “1” or “2”, or even
characters can be confused, generating invalid answers / votes.
“oo1” or “oo2”, and so on).
The applications allow the statistical accounting of votes
About the expected international participation for the
(tallying) at any moment, by the consulting clients. The e-
process, through the voluntary geographic identification, it was
Voting system can serve as a revision tool – in real time – about
verified the participation of citizens from 13 countries: United
big population references, or – with restrictions – can serve as a
States of America, Argentina, Chile, Peru, England, Denmark,
final result accounting, after ended the voting time window.
Netherlands, Poland, Italy, Spain, Kenya, Egypt and Australia.
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