Virtual Election System

I developed a virtual election system initially for the Association of Justice Officials of the State of São Paulo (AOJESP) using Laravel, Bootstrap, Vue JS, and MySQL. The association’s goal was to reduce the costs of elections, increase member participation, and at the same time ensure the integrity of the entire event. After several tests in 2017, the system was used in the association’s first virtual election in 2018. (The first versions in 2017 were made directly in HTML, CSS, Javascript + Jquery and we also made two versions in Django + Bootstrap and one version in C#, but we gave up on continuing with C# because it had a higher hosting value and Django because we understood that VueJS + Laravel would be faster.) The previous electoral process was highly susceptible to being contested, which would result in substantial costs for the association as well as damage to its reputation among its members. The most challenging aspect was designing a system that ensured the security of information while simplifying the audit process. This was the main requirement of the backend, so we preferred LARAVEL. On the frontend, the premise was to create a simple, intuitive design that was responsive on mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and smart TVs and optimized to simplify the managerial process in order to minimize human errors and the need for highly specialized operators, so VUE JS being reactive, was elected and won Jquery’s pace. The system was divided into modules and each module into several tasks (Explicitly we made a Kanban). This approach provided clarity on available time and progress and ensured alignment with the electoral schedule. Essentially, after the administrator imports or registers members, they define the rules of the election, including criteria for voting eligibility (defaulting or newly associated members cannot vote for example), disclosure methods (A bot made in python automated this disclosure), pre-tests for electoral inspectors and other relevant information such as details of candidate slates and discussion topics. (We used a wordpress to receive information from Laravel with access to a shared MySQL). As the tool was successful, with a significant reduction in costs and a substantial increase in the efficiency of the electoral process, I adapted the system to serve condominiums as well. Currently, I plan to implement new features such as blockchain and bidding modules. This project provided insights into system scalability and multi-tenancy concept.