
  phpSGVote 
  A blind and secure student voting system designed for Student Governments.
  Copyright (C) 2000 Chris Maj <cmm5533@rit.edu>
  Project Home Page: http://www.rit.edu/~cmm5533/sg/index.html

CONTENTS
1. Other files in this package
2. Dependencies
3. Example SQL statements to setup database tables
4. Philosophy behind phpSGVote 
5. GNU General Public License


1. Other files in this package

* denotes required

a. phpSGVote.php3 *
   Point your browser to this file.
b. phpSGVote.cfg *
   Stores the database connection, file locations, etc.
c. questions_form.html *
   HTML form to display the questions.
   Reserved input names are:
     action 
     user 
     pass 
     submit 
   Variable number of questions, but all must be radio
   buttons with character values a-m.
d. header.html
   Header HTML to display.
e. footer.html
   Footer HTML to display.
f. README
   (this file)

2. Dependencies

* denotes required

a. MySQL *
b. Apache w/SSL + PHP as modules
c. LDAP


3. Example SQL statements to setup database tables 

All information recorded is stored in two blind MySQL tables,
users and results.  The results table stores an id and each question's
response as a character.  The users table stores the md5 hash
of the username.

a. Results table	

variable number of columns: q1-qn
required column: id

mysql> CREATE TABLE VoteRESULTS
    -> (q1 CHAR(1) NOT NULL, 
    -> q2 CHAR(1) NOT NULL,
    -> q3 CHAR(1) NOT NULL,
    -> id INT(5) AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY);

b. Users table

required column: name

mysql> CREATE TABLE VoteUSERS  
    -> (name CHAR(32) PRIMARY KEY);


4. Philosophy behind phpSGVote

All too often, student opinion is given little regard by
administrators and faculty.  Decisions are either made with some
suggestions from Student Government or without any student input
at all. 

At one regional northeastern university, where Alcohol
Prohibition is back and students are called customers, the
president is on record for demeaning people of college age
as unfit to make their own decisions.  "If they don't like
it, they can vote with their feet."  How about their mice?

By empowering the students with a web-based interface to direct
democratic controls like the initiative, referendum, and recall, 
phpSGVote allows for all voices to be heard while preserving
their privacy.  Casual polling can give way to binding
resolutions, potentially eliminating the need for a body of
representation like Student Government, if conducted with
sufficient frequency.

With more young adults engendering feelings of political
responsibility, respect for the beliefs of others will no
doubt also increase.  Ultimately, as communication strengthens
between previously disparate groups within the student body,
coordination of the revolution will be that much more
possible.


5. GNU General Public License

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or 
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version
2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be
useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty
of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See
the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA
02111-1307, USA.

(or try http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.txt)
