Online Voter Registration platform (with voting option): A Prototype

The system design consists of three components:

1)  Security:

The https website is a widely used communications protocol for secure communications over the Internet.

Each user/voter will create a personal account with a unique username and password. This allows them to log on and maintain a secure profile web page that contains their voter registration information. The information includes name, age, physical address, an image of their national ID or passport and a sworn statement. It also features a geo-location function that indicates the origins of every user/voter's account to ascertain that a diaspora voter’s location is in fact outside of Kenya.

2)  Interactive website:

The website contains a form (written in PHP, a server-side programming language) that the applicant uses to create and maintain a secure profile web page.

3)  Database:

The form entries are stored on the database (mySQL) in a format similar to an Excel spreadsheet. The spreadsheet will be made available to registration authorities (IEBC in the case for Kenya), to log on and validate that a user/voter is indeed eligible to vote and can be allowed to proceed to the next step, which is voting.

After validation, the voter logs into their profile and cast a vote for their candidate and updates their profile. After the voting period, IEBC downloads the voter spreadsheet which tallies up the diaspora votes. The platform can be used for both voter registration and for voting.