AN ENHANCED VOTERS REGISTRATION AND AUTHENTICATION APPLICATION USING IRIS RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY

The use of fingerprints in a voting system for registration and authentication application has its limitations. Among these limitations are mismatches caused by disparity in fingerprint trait and templates of voters taken at the point of registration and at the point of authentication (voter’s accreditation). Manual labour, aging, variations in user interaction (i.e. pressure on the scanner), environmental changes and injuries are a few of the factors that can cause these disparities. The iris is more resistant to these factors that cause disparity in biometrics. In this designed model, the iris was used in place of fingerprints as the biometric measure to register and authenticate voters. An iris scanner obtains the voter’s iris image, segments and digitizes it. The digitized iris image of the voter is used as a training data and stored in the template. This template is stored together with the voter’s particulars in a database. An algorithm design using the C# (C sharp) language issues a PIN for the voter’s authentication. At the point of authentication, the PIN of the voter is keyed in. The iris scanner obtains the voter’s iris image, generates a template of the iris and with the aid of the system’s embedded algorithm, compares the details of the voter’s pin and iris trait with the one in the database for a match. A match grants the voter the pass to vote. A mismatch denies the voter access to the voting system. This implemented Iris Recognition Technology drastically reduces the chances of mismatches for genuine voters and denies imposters in the voting system due to its reliability and robustness as revealed by the tests carried out on the designed model.