SecureVote — Secure E Voting Platform

A production-grade, security-first digital voting system designed with zero-trust principles, end-to-end encryption, and high availability in mind.

This system ensures:

• Voter privacy (no intermediate result leakage)
• Cryptographic integrity (RSA + Shamir Secret Sharing)
• Fair elections (results only after closure + delay)
• Transparent auditing (audit logs for all actions)

---

Live Deployment

• Backend (Render): https://securevoting.onrender.com/

• Frontend (Firebase): https://evoting-76d.web.app/

• Admin Panel: https://evoting-76d.web.app/admin.html

---

Core Features

Voter System

• Secure registration & login
• Vote casting with encrypted payloads
• Real-time participation percentage (no result leakage)
• One-vote-per-user enforcement

Admin System

• Election creation & scheduling
• Candidate management
• Election lifecycle control (pending → active → ended)
• Secure result decryption using key shares
• Audit log visibility

Security Model

• RSA-based vote encryption
• Shamir Secret Sharing (3 shares, 2 required)
• Private key destroyed after split
• Reconstructed only post-election
• JWT-based authentication (separate voter/admin secrets)
• Rate limiting + CORS protection

Result Control

• No candidate-wise visibility during voting
• Only participation % visible
• Results automatically available 30 minutes after election ends

---

System Architecture

Frontend (Firebase Hosting)
        ↓
Backend API (Render - Node.js/Express)
        ↓
Database (Neon PostgreSQL)

---

Tech Stack

• Frontend: HTML, CSS, JavaScript (Vanilla)
• Backend: Node.js, Express
• Database: PostgreSQL (Neon)
• Auth: JWT
• Security: bcrypt, RSA, Shamir Secret Sharing
• Deployment: Render + Firebase
• Process Manager (Dev): PM2

---

Development Setup

1. Clone & Setup

git clone <repo-url>
cd securevoting/backend
npm install

2. Environment Setup

Create .env:

PORT=3000
DATABASE_URL=your_local_db_url

JWT_VOTER_SECRET=your_secret
JWT_ADMIN_SECRET=your_secret

ADMIN_USERNAME=admin
ADMIN_EMAIL=admin@test.com
ADMIN_PASSWORD=StrongPassword123!

---

3. Initialize Database

node scripts/migrate.js

---

4. Run with PM2 (Development)

npm install -g pm2
pm2 start server.js --name securevote-dev
pm2 logs

Useful PM2 Commands

pm2 restart securevote-dev
pm2 stop securevote-dev
pm2 delete securevote-dev

---

Production Setup

Backend (Render)

• Root Directory: backend
• Build Command: npm install
• Start Command: node server.js

Required Environment Variables

NODE_ENV=production
PORT=10000

DATABASE_URL=your_neon_url

JWT_VOTER_SECRET=...
JWT_ADMIN_SECRET=...

ALLOWED_ORIGINS=https://evoting-76d.web.app

---

Frontend (Firebase)

cd backend/frontend
firebase deploy

---

Admin Initialization

Admin is created using:

NODE_ENV=production node scripts/migrate.js

After creation, remove:

ADMIN_PASSWORD=...

---

Election Flow

1. Admin logs in
2. Creates election
3. Adds candidates
4. Starts election
5. Voters register & vote
6. Admin ends election
7. Key shares submitted
8. Results decrypted after delay

---

Audit & Transparency

Every critical action is logged:

• login attempts
• vote casting
• election changes
• result decryption

---

Security Considerations

• Never expose .env files
• Use strong JWT secrets (64-byte hex)
• Enforce HTTPS (handled via Render/Firebase)
• Use secure cookies in future upgrades

---

Future Improvements

• Secure cookie-based auth (HTTP-only)
• Dockerized microservices
• Real-time monitoring dashboard
• CI/CD pipeline
• AI-based fraud detection
• Multi-region deployment

---

Summary

SecureVote is a production-ready, security-focused voting platform that demonstrates:

• distributed system design
• applied cryptography
• full-stack engineering
• real-world deployment

---

Author

Shashwat