An election is a formal decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold public office.[1] Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy operates since the 17th century. The election system should be in such a way to withstand a variety of fraudulent behaviors. Unsurprisingly, history is littered with examples of elections being manipulated in order to nuance their outcome. The design of a "good" voting system, whether electronic or using traditional paper ballots or mechanical devices must satisfy a number of sometimes competing criteria.
and to guarantee that voters have no evidence that proves which candidates received their votes. The existence of such evidence would allow votes to be purchased by a candidate. The voting system must also be tamper-resistant to thwart a wide range of attacks, including ballot stuffing by voters and incorrect tallying by insiders. Another factor, as shown by the so-called "butter y ballots" in the Florida 2000 presidential election, is the importance of human factors. A voting system must be comprehensible to and usable by the entire voting population, regardless of age, infirmity, or disability. Providing accessibility to such a diverse population is an important engineering problem and one where, if other security is done well, electronic voting could be a great improvement over current paper systems. Flaws in any of these aspects of a voting system, however, can lead to indecisive or incorrect election results. In electronic voting system there have been several threats, and poor software development processes including unauthorized privilege escalation, incorrect use of cryptography, vulnerabilities to network
1. Draw back of traditional and electronic voting system-need for Biometrics
Up to now the voting systems are taking the data of voting and they are not bothered about the authenticity of the person where by providing a chance for others to cast the votes i.e. unauthorized privilege escalation. The proposed voting system authenticates the person and considers the voting
2. Classification of biometrics:
The two categories of biometric techniques are:
The physiological based techniques, which measure the physiological characteristics of a person. These include fingerprint verification, iris analysis, facial analysis, hand geometry-vein patterns, ear recognition, odor detection and DNA pattern analysis. The behavioral based techniques, which measure the behavior of a person. These include hand written signature verification and speech analysis. These techniques involve two major steps. These are the Authentication & the verification. Authentication is a process of one-to one Comparison, rather than a mass searching process. Identification is a process of checking for a particular identity in the database available.
3. How biometric technology works:
Process involved in using a biometric system for security is:
Figure1.
During enrollment:
1) Capture the biometrics, which has to be stored in the database.
2) Process the biometric, extract and enroll the
Biometric template.
3) Store the template in a local repository, a central repository, or a portable token such as a smart card.
During access to database:
4) Live-scan the biometric feature;
5) Process the biometric and extract the biometric template;
6) Match the scanned biometric against stored templates;
7) In case of successful verification; provide a matching score to business application;
8) Record a secure audit trail with respect to system use
4. Applications of biometrics:
All the information regarding the fingerprints, retina etc… Are digitalized and stored. This can be compared with a database in seconds and with an extraordinary degree of accuracy. Fingerprints have the advantage of being cheaper and simpler than most other biometrics.
4.1 E-commerce Applications:
E-commerce developers are exploring the use of biometrics to more accurately verify a trading party's identity.
4.2 Covert Surveillance:
Facial and body recognition biometric techniques come in to picture automatically to identify known suspects entering buildings or traversing crowed security areas such as airports.
5. Types of Biometric security technologies:
5.1 Finger scan:
Finger-scan biometrics is base on the distinctive characteristics of the human fingerprint. A fingerprint image is read from a capture device, features are extracted from the image, and a template is created. Fingerprints are used in forensic applications: large- scale, one-to-many searches on databases of up to millions of fingerprints. These searches can be done within only a few hours by using AFIS (Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems). The basic in both finger scan and finger prints is that the curvatures, deltas, crossovers, pores, loops etc, are of a person are captured and stored in the database in digitized for and are encrypted in cases of authentication or identification .
Figure2. Finger Scanner
5.2 Hand geometry:
Hand geometry involves analyzing and measuring the shape of the hand. These biometric offers a good balance of performance characteristics and are relatively easy to use. It might be suitable where there are more users or where users access the system infrequently and are perhaps less disciplined in their approach to the system. Accuracy can be very high if desired and flexible performance tuning and configuration can accommodate a wide range of applications. Organizations are using hand geometry readers in various scenarios, including time and attendance recording, where they have proved extremely popular. Ease of integration into other systems and processes, coupled with ease of use, and makes hand geometry an obvious first step for many biometric projects.
Fig.3 Hand Geometry
5.3 Face
Face recognition analyzes facial characteristics. It requires a digital camera to develop a facial image of the user for authentication. This technique has attracted considerable interest, although many people don't completely understand its capabilities.
5.4 Signature
Signature verification analyzes the way a user signs her name. Signing features such as speed, velocity, and pressure are as important as the finished signature's static shape. Signature verification enjoys a synergy with existing processes that other biometrics do not. People are used to signatures as a means of transaction-related identity verification and most would see nothing unusual in extending this to encompass biometrics. Signature verification devices are reasonably accurate in operation and obviously lend themselves to applications where a signature is an accepted identifier. Surprisingly, relatively few significant signature applications have emerged compared with other biometric methodologies. But if your application fits, it is a technology worth considering.
5.5 Voice
Voice authentication is not based on voice recognition but on voice-to-print authentication, where complex technology transforms voice into text. Voice biometrics has the most potential for growth, because it requires no new hardware-most PCs already contain a microphone. However, poor quality and ambient noise can affect verification addition; the enrollment procedure has often been more complicated than with other biometrics, leading to the perception that voice verification is not user friendly. Therefore, voice authentication software needs improvement. One day, voice may become an additive technology to finger-scan technology. Because many people see finger scanning as a higher authentication form, voice biometrics will most likely be relegated to replacing or enhancing PINs, passwords, or account names.
5.6 Retina scans:
Retina scan requires the user to situate his or her eye with ½ inch of the capture device and hold still while the reader ascertains the patterns. The user looks at a rotating green light as the patterns of the retina are measured at over 400 points; which leads a very high
level off accuracy in comparison to most other
biometrics. Retina scan is designed to use in military facilities, logical security applications such as network access or PC logic. The patterns of blood vessels on the back of the human eye are unique from person to person. The blood vessels on the back of the retina are generally stable through one's lifetime, with the exception of degenerative diseases. Since the retina is an internal portion of the eye, retina scanning is considered intrusive. Thus the individual may be hesitant to get exposed to the scanning. Moreover, retina scanning is a costly and sophisticated process.
5.7 Iris scans:
The iris has colored streaks and lines that radiate out from the pupil of the eye. The iris provides the most comprehensive biometric data after DNA. And the chance that any two people may have the same pattern is one in 10 to-the-power-78, which is way above the current population of the Earth. In this scanning, the characteristics of the iris are taken into account. About 266 unique points are recorded and converted into a 512-byte iris code (somewhat similar to barcode). For recording the iris pattern, a monochrome camera is used and the distance between the eye and the camera can be at most 3 feet. The iris code constructed contains information the characteristics and position of the unique points. The iris has more unique information than any other single organ in the body.
6. Drawbacks of traditional and electronic voting systems
A major problem with biometrics is how and where to store the the user's template. Its storage introduces privacy concerns. On the other hand, storing the template on a smart card enhances individual privacy and increases protection from attack, because individual users control their own templates. Inside the eye is a very delicate area and so, many people are very hesitating to use laser eye device. Two primary causes of errors affect biometric data: time and environmental conditions. Biometrics may change as an individual ages. Environmental conditions may either after the biometric directly (for example, if a finger is cut and scarred) or interfere with the data collection (for instance, background noise when using a voice biometric).
7. Future of biometrics:
Biometric technology is one area that no segment of the IT industry can afford to ignore, biometrics provides security benefits across the spectrum, from IT vendors to end users, and from security system developers to security system users. All these industry sectors must evaluate the costs and benefits of implementing such security measures.
8. Our work on biometrics:
Every biometric system has its limitations. Therefore, identification based on multiple biometrics is an emerging trend as multimode biometrics can provide a more balanced solution to the security multimode systems involve the use of more than one biometric system. Our contribution to the above subject is that we have developed an algorithm on multi modal biometric voting system. The authenticity is assured by using finger scan, voice scan, and hand geometry scan and by requesting the password given by the citizen for a particular user when necessary. The following are the flowcharts and the algorithms.
Every citizen is given PIN number and his characteristics are stored in the corresponding location.
STEP 1: A person enters the polling booth that uses multimodal biometric voting system (finger scan, voice scan & hand scan) for greater degree of security.
STEP 2: The person is requested to ENTER his or her PIN. The PIN is checked whether it is in voted list or not
IF (PIN is in voted list GOTO STEP8
ELSE GOTO STEP: 3)
8.2.1Algorithm:
Start
Multi model biometric voting system
Finger scan
(b)
©
Yes (d)
Voice scan
Flow chart-2
(f) No (g)
Yes
(k)
No
Hand scan No
Flow chart-2 no
Yes
(i)
Stop
Access the matched file into database
STEP 3: The person is requested to give his or her fingerprint (as input) on the finger scan pad the fingerprint taken as input in the above step is compared with the fingerprints in the database of corresponding pin.
IF Fingerprint is matched with the fingerprint available in the database of PIN (condition)
THEN, GOTO STEP 8.
ELSE (i.e., if finger print does not find a match)
GOTO STEP 4
STEP 4: The person is requested to speak few words, which is converted into digitalized code by the voice scanner
STEP 5: The code in the above step is compared with the voice codes in the database of PIN
IF the code is matched (condition)
THEN,
GOTO ALGORITHM 2
ELSE (i.e., if the code does not find a match)
GOTO STEP 6.
STEP 6: The person is requested to place his Hand above the hand scanner so that the structure of the hand is recorded.
STEP 7: The data in the above step is compared with all the data available in the database.
IF the data is matched
THEN,
GOTO STEP8.
ELSE (i.e., the data does not find a match)
GOTO Algorithm 2.
STEP 8: The person is authorized for voting.
STEP 9: The corresponding pin is noted as voted
8.2.2 Algorithm 2:
STEP 1: A request is sent to the database querying it to send the password file from the OS security files.
The passwords are received in an encrypted from (DES-data Encryption Standards).
STEP 2: The person is requested to speak his password.
STEP 3: the vocal password spoken in the above step is converted into textual password by the speech processing circuit
STEP 4: This password is compared with password file from step 1.
IF match is found
THEN,
ELSE,
Voting is denied
STEP 5: Exit.
Stop
Consider the vote.
(o)
Textual password
Speech processing circuit.
Password spoken
Flow chart algorithm-2
Data base
Operating system searches for security file
Glow the red light indicator
Figure 4.flowchart-2
9. Conclusion
Multimodal Biometric Voting System:
Considering various biometric techniques like finger scan, retina scan etc, finger scan is widely used. Biometric technology has been around for decades But has mainly been for highly secretive environments with extreme security measures. The proposed algorithm for multimodal biometric voting system minimizes the corruption involved by human intention. The technologies behind biometrics are still emerging. This article gives a snapshot of the dynamics under way in this emerging biometric market, and we hope it will help all the possible alternatives when acquiring new biometric technologies.
