anirudhachal/secure-ranked-choice-e-voting

Software Engineering Lab Project

Secure-Ranked-Choice-E-Voting

Secure Ranked Choice E-Voting is a web application that provides an easy-to-use method of collecting encrypted ballots that is secure against malicious actors, and capable of authenticating voters properly. Additionally, the web interface allows the tabulation of election results and the public posting of those results. The elections will follow ranked choice voting which has become more popular than single choice voting.

The goal of this project is to build and deploy a robust, secure, reliable and user-friendly online voting application. This is achieved with cryptography methods. Real life use cases for this software application include Student Council elections, official college-related elections and any other type of election.

Note: All screenshots can be found in the screenshots directory.

Tech Stack

• Frontend: React
• Backend: Django Rest Framework
• Database: PostgreSQL

Project Structure

.
├── Final Report.pdf
├── README.md
├── backend
│   ├── backend
│   │   ├── authentication
│   │   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   │   ├── admin.py
│   │   │   ├── apps.py
│   │   │   ├── migrations
│   │   │   ├── models.py
│   │   │   ├── serializers.py
│   │   │   ├── tests.py
│   │   │   ├── urls.py
│   │   │   ├── utils.py
│   │   │   └── views.py
│   │   ├── backend
│   │   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   │   ├── asgi.py
│   │   │   ├── settings.py
│   │   │   ├── urls.py
│   │   │   └── wsgi.py
│   │   ├── election
│   │   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   │   ├── admin.py
│   │   │   ├── apps.py
│   │   │   ├── migrations
│   │   │   ├── models.py
│   │   │   ├── serializers.py
│   │   │   ├── tests.py
│   │   │   ├── urls.py
│   │   │   ├── utils.py
│   │   │   └── views.py
│   │   └── manage.py
│   └── requirements.txt
├── frontend
│   ├── README.md
│   ├── package-lock.json
│   ├── package.json
│   ├── public
│   │   ├── favicon.ico
│   │   ├── index.html
│   │   ├── logo192.png
│   │   ├── logo512.png
│   │   ├── manifest.json
│   │   └── robots.txt
│   └── src
│       ├── App.js
│       ├── axios.js
│       ├── components
│       │   ├── Admin
│       │   │   ├── AdminCompletedElectionContainerView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── AdminCompletedElectionView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── AdminDashboardContainerView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── AdminDashboardView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── AdminElectionContainerView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── AdminElectionView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── AdminNavbarContainerView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── AdminNavbarView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── AdminOngoingElectionContainerView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── AdminOngoingElectionView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── AdminUpcomingElectionContainerView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── AdminUpcomingElectionView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── CreateElectionContainerView.jsx
│       │   │   └── CreateElectionView.jsx
│       │   ├── Dashboard
│       │   │   ├── DashboardContainerView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── DashboardView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── NavbarContainerView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── NavbarView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── PageNotFoundContainerView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── PageNotFoundView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── ProfileContainerView.jsx
│       │   │   └── ProfileView.jsx
│       │   ├── Election
│       │   │   ├── BallotContainerView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── BallotView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── CompletedElectionContainerView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── CompletedElectionView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── ElectionContainerView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── ElectionView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── OngoingElectionContainerView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── OngoingElectionView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── ResultContainerView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── ResultStaticView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── ResultView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── UpcomingElectionContainerView.jsx
│       │   │   └── UpcomingElectionView.jsx
│       │   ├── User
│       │   │   ├── LoginContainerView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── LoginView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── MyProfileContainerView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── MyProfileView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── PasswordResetContainerView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── PasswordResetEmailContainerView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── PasswordResetEmailView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── PasswordResetView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── RegisterContainerView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── RegisterView.jsx
│       │   │   ├── VerifyEmailContainerView.jsx
│       │   │   └── VerifyEmailView.jsx
│       │   ├── styles
│       │   │   ├── CreateElectionView.css
│       │   │   ├── LoginView.css
│       │   │   ├── MyProfileView.css
│       │   │   ├── PageNotFound.css
│       │   │   ├── PasswordResetEmailView.css
│       │   │   ├── PasswordResetView.css
│       │   │   ├── RegisterView.css
│       │   │   ├── ResultView.css
│       │   │   └── VerifyEmailView.css
│       │   └── utils
│       │       ├── authentication.js
│       │       ├── response.js
│       │       └── user.js
│       ├── images
│       │   ├── completed.png
│       │   ├── lighthouse.jpg
│       │   ├── ongoing.jpg
│       │   └── upcoming.jpg
│       └── index.js
└── screenshots

19 directories, 138 files

Backend Setup

1. Create a new virtual environment

cd backend
python -m venv env

2. Activate the virtual enviromnent

On Windows

env\Scripts\activate

On Linux

source env/bin/activate

3. Install python packages

On Linux

sudo apt install libpq-dev python3-dev
pip install wheel
pip install -r requirements.txt

On Windows

pip install -r requirements.txt

4. Setup environment variables

• Create a .env file at the root directoy of the backend (at the same level as manage.py)
• Add secret keys using the .env.example file as reference

5. Setup Django Database

cd backend
python manage.py migrate

6. Start Django Restful API

python manage.py runserver

Frontend Setup

cd frontend
npm ci
npm start

Local Database Setup

• Create a new local PostgreSQL database using PgAdmin
• Add all required environment variables in the .env file using the .env.example file as reference

Resources

• Django Rest Framework
• React

secure-ranked-choice-e-voting's Issues

Build Error while insalling psycopg2

In your local system do this first : sudo apt-get install libpq-dev.
Before installing requirements.txt in venv do the following command pip install wheel.

Improve getRandomColor() function

The current getRandomColor() function in ResultView.jsx is not very good.
Consecutive calling of that function returns similar colors.
This leads to consecutive candidates having similar colors making it difficult to distinguish.
Someone fix it pls.

Ranked Choice Vote Calculation Code

# ballots is a 2 - d array of votes
# listed in preference order of candidates of each voter

def count_votes():
	ballots = [[1, 2, 3], [2, 3, 1], [3, 1, 2], [1, 3, 2],
			  [2, 1, 3], [3, 2, 1]]

	round = 0
	winner = 0
	candidates = len(ballots[0])
	voters = len(ballots)
	majority = voters/2
	track = [0] * voters
	skip = [0] * candidates
        result_history = []

	while round < candidates:
		arr = [0] * candidates
		# count votes
		for i in range(0, voters):
			arr[ballots[i][track[i]] - 1] += 1

		print(arr)
                result_history.append(arr)
		# check for majority
		lowest = arr.index(max(arr))
		for i in range(0, candidates):
			if skip[i] == 1:
				continue
			if arr[i] > majority:
				winner = i+1
			if arr[lowest] > arr[i]:
				lowest = i

		if winner != 0:
			break 
		print(lowest)
		# eliminate loser
		skip[lowest] = 1
		for i in range(0, voters):
			while skip[ballots[i][track[i]] - 1] == 1:
				track[i] += 1
		round += 1

	print(winner, round)	
		
count_votes()