Mitigating Voting Irregularities with Secure E-Voting in Nigeria

Kenneth Ora Melie, Pace University

Abstract

This study examines the challenges of free and fair elections in Nigeria and other African Nations. Nonfunctional and untrusted electoral democratic institutions in Nigeria and Africa are attributed to stateful and stateless mass voter intimidation, voter fraud, vote-buying, and other non-democratic criminal infractions resulting in dire and poor outcomes in leadership. This has led to an interest in developing solutions with as little human involvement as possible. This study examines the e-voting systems to mitigate such infractions. National electoral government bodies like INEC of Nigeria, have interests in online voter registration portals where registrants fill out a secure online pdf. The solution appears to ease the cumbersome registration process but is not user-friendly and is limited to the ownership of computers with internet access and does not address the ballot casting dilemma. The number of mobile connections in Nigeria in January 2021 was equivalent to 90.0% of the total population, thus study suggests that mobile e-voting is the best choice for e-voting. In addition to deploying a mobile prototype registration app, the research conducted a survey for the possibility of a complete solution to include registration and secure voting with the same group on its feasibility. The study showed that the proposed novel system was a desirable solution. Secondly, using a post-survey qualitative survey designed to explore public perception towards e-voting and its ability to reduce voter fraud and voter intimidation, the study findings reveal that most Nigerians prefer e-voting and find it a more secure and safe method of registration and casting their votes. Data collected from the voters was analyzed using quantitative methods, more specifically, descriptive and inferential statistical analysis. The manipulation check results show that majority of the participants had a significant understanding of the proposed voting systems meaning that the data collected from the respondents had a significant level of reliability. The study then explored the cryptography-based FOO protocol in e-voting and propose a theoretical framework that combines Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) with the FOO protocol to reduce instances of voter fraud and voter intimidation. The research analyzes the advantages and limitations of this framework and advocate for its adoption into the Nigerian electoral system. In addition, the study recommended that the implementation of risk-limiting audits (RLAs) could help mitigate the threat of cyber-attacks on e-voting systems and equipment failures.

Subject Area

Computer science|Information Technology

Recommended Citation

Melie, Kenneth Ora, "Mitigating Voting Irregularities with Secure E-Voting in Nigeria" (2021). ETD Collection for Pace University. AAI28767938.
https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/dissertations/AAI28767938

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