Welcome to the Pericles Voting Client. This program is the part of the Pericles Electronics Elections System that lets you vote in electronic elections. You can also use the voting client to change your vote after you have already voted, but this only permitted in certain elections.

In order to use the Voting Client, there are several pieces of information that you need to know. These include the address of the Pericles Election Server that you wish to connect to, the election code of the election that you want to vote in, your username for this election and your password for this election. The username and password are optional in some elections. All of this information should have been distributed to you by e-mail or directly from the election authourities.

You should not leave your computer at any time while this program is running, as someone could use it to irretrievably steal your vote while you are gone. You must submit your ballot within half an hour of receiving it, otherwise your vote will not be accepted. If this happens, you must re-log in with the Voting Client and begin again.

Please note that you cannot consider your vote as being recorded unless you are given a verification number by this program.

This program consists of several dialogue boxes. They are as follows:

Login Dialogue Box
Refuse Ballot Dialogue Box
Voting Dialogue Box
Verify Ballot Dialogue Box
Vote In Transit Dialogue Box
Receipt Dialogue Box

Each dialogue box of the Elections Administrator may have error messages associated with it. An error window will appear whenever one of these errors occurs. The only button on these windows will be an "OK" button, which the user must press in order to do anything further in the Elections Editor.

Login Dialogue Box

This dialogue box allows you to enter the information that you will need to connect to a Pericles Elections Server, receive the appropriate ballot and vote. Please contact the elections authourities if you have not been supplied with any of the informatin required in this dialogue box.

The Voting Client will automatically quit if invalid information is entered three times. This is done in order to hinder automated attempts to break security.

Please remember that the computer that you are using must be connected to the Internet or a properly set up network in order for this program to work.

Choices Available:

Server Address: the address of the server that you with to connect to.
Election Code: the election code of the election that you wish to vote in.
User Name: enter your user name for this election here.
Password: enter your password for this election here. This information is starred out as it is entered, so as to prevent onlookers from reading it.
Help: this menu item takes the user to the help screen for the Voting Client.
Quit: this menu item takes quits the Voting Client.
Login: this button takes the user to either the Refuse Ballot Dialogue Box or the Voting Dialogue Box, depending on the nature of the election.

Invalid login information: this error appears if you enter a user name and password that are invalid for the election that you are trying to vote in.
Incomplete information entered: this error appears if you press the "Login" button without having entered a "Server Address" and "Election Code".
Could not connect to server: this error appears if you enter a "Server Address" that does not correspond to the address of a Pericles Elections Server.
Invalid election code: this error appears if you enter an "Election Code" that does not correspond to an election registered on the Pericles Elections Server that you connected to.
Election is over: this error appears if you try to vote in an election for which the voting period has ended.
Election has not begun yet: this error appears if you try to vote in an election for which the voting period has not begun yet..
Election is suspended: this error appears if you attempt to vote in an election that has been suspended by the election authourities. Please contact your elections contact for more information.
You have already voted: this error appears if you attempt to vote in an election for which you have already voted and for which voting is only allowed once.

Refuse Ballot Dialogue Box

This dialogue box allows you to refuse your ballot. This means that you will not be presented with a ballot and your vote will be officially recorded as a refusal. This is a way to protest the election in general. This is only an option in some elections.

Choices Available:

View Ballot: this button takes you to the Voting Dialogue Box.
Refuse Ballot: this button takes you to the Verify Ballot Dialogue Box.
Help: this menu item takes the user to the help screen for the Voting Client.
Quit: this menu item takes quits the Voting Client.

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Voting Dialogue Box

This dialogue box allows you to view the ballot for the election that you are voting in. Please read all of the information carefully.

Each question has a radio button on it that corresponds to a choice. Only one choice is allowed per question. There is no default choice for any of the questions and you must select a choice for each question, otherwise your vote will not be accepted. Click on the radio button that corresponds to the choice that you want for each question.

Some ballots may have an option to spoil your vote on each question. This is a way to register your protest relating to that question and/or its choices. If you spoil one question, the answer to that question will be registered as spoiled. This will not affect any of your answers to other questions, which will not be spoiled unless you choose to explicitly spoil them as well.

If you have already voted in this election but are allowed to change your vote, your answers on the newest ballot will overwrite your old answers.

Choices Available:

Done: this button brings up the Verify Ballot Dialogue Box. Your vote has not been recorded.
Help: this menu item takes the user to the help screen for the Voting Client.
Quit: this menu item takes quits the Voting Client.

Not all questions filled in: this error means that you have not answered all of the questions in the ballot.

Verify Ballot Dialogue Box

This dialogue box allows you to review your choices before the ballot is recorded. It displays all of the choices that you made to make sure that everything is alright.

Choices Available:

Edit Your Vote: this button takes you back to the Voting Dialogue Box so that you can make changes to your vote.
Quit: this button quits the Voting Client. Your vote has not been recorded.
Submit Your Vote: this button causes the Voting Client to attempt to contact the Pericles Elections Server to record your vote. It brings up the Vote In Transit Dialogue Box.
Help: this menu item takes the user to the help screen for the Voting Client.
Quit: this menu item takes quits the Voting Client.

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Vote In Transit Dialogue Box

This dialogue box asks you to wait while the Voting Client to attempts to contact the Pericles Elections Server to record your vote. Remember that your vote is not truly recorded until you receive a verification number.

If an error message is received in this dialogue box, then the Voting Client will automatically quit when you press the "OK" button on the error dialogue box.

If your vote is recorded, then the Receipt Dialogue Box will automatically appear.

Choices Available:

Help: this menu item takes the user to the help screen for the Voting Client.
Quit: this menu item is greyed out for this dialogue box.

Election is over: this error appears if the voting has ended between the time you received the ballot and now. Your vote has not been recorded.
Election is suspended: this error appears if the election has been suspended between the time you received the ballot and now. Please contact the election authourities for more informatin. Your vote has not been recorded.
You took too long to vote: this error appears if you took longer than half an hour to vote. You must start again. Your vote has not been recorded.
Could not register your vote on Elections Server: this error appears if the Voting Client is unable to properly register your vote on the Elections Server for technical reasons. Please begin again. If this does not work, please contact the elections authourities. Your vote has not been recorded.
Vote timed out:  this error indicates that three minutes have elapsed since your vote was submitted and that the Voting Client could not contact the server within this time. This could be because the server is very busy and could not process your vote. This timeout error is here for security reasons and to reduce network traffic. Please try again later. If this does not work, please contact the elections authourities. Your vote has not been recorded.

Receipt Dialogue Box

This window will appear when your vote has been succesfully recorded. A verification number will be displayed on this screen. Please record this number for your records. This window also displays your vote.

Choices Available:

Done: this button quits the Voting Client.
Help: this menu item takes the user to the help screen for the Voting Client.

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Questions or comments: cory@uoguelph.ca

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