Design of an Electronic Voting Machine with Anti-Tampering Features for School Elections at Federal Government Colleges in Lagos

Background: Manual voting processes in Nigerian school elections are susceptible to manipulation and administrative errors. Electronic voting machines with anti-tampering features can enhance integrity and efficiency of student electoral processes. Aim: This project designed and constructed an electronic voting machine with anti-tampering features for student election applications at Federal Government Colleges in Lagos, South West Nigeria. Methods: The system used an Arduino Mega, a 4x4 keypad, a 20x4 LCD, and an SD card for vote logging. Anti-tampering features included a sealed enclosure, password-protected result access, and vote count hash verification using CRC algorithms. Simulated elections with 50 student volunteers evaluated system performance. Results: Vote recording accuracy was 100% in all simulated trials. Result hash verification successfully detected all four artificially introduced data tampering attempts. Voter throughput was 12 voters per minute. Conclusion: The designed electronic voting machine provides a reliable and tamper-resistant platform for school elections. Field deployment across Federal Government Colleges and further development of biometric voter verification are recommended. Keywords: electronic voting machine, anti-tampering, Arduino, school elections, Lagos.