Prepin
Log in

Create an electoral system for the University of Washington.

Approach / Explanation

This question prompts you to create a system capable of efficiently managing the election process for a university, such as the University of Washington. In your design, you will need to take into account various aspects, including voter registration and verification, the voting procedure, vote counting, and the presentation of results. Additionally, you should consider the following key aspects: Scalability : The system must be designed to accommodate a growing student population. Reliability : The system should operate correctly and achieve the intended results even in the case of a failure. Security : It should be impossible to alter votes. Usability : The system should be easy to use, allowing students to cast their votes quickly and effortlessly.

Suggested Answer

The electoral system must be scalable, secure, and dependable. I would develop it in three phases, corresponding to the key components: voter registration, the voting process, and the display of vote counts. For Voter Registration , I propose creating a web portal linked to the university's database that allows students to register by verifying their identities through their student ID numbers. To enhance security, a confirmation email could be sent to the students' university email addresses upon registration. For the Voting Process , students should log into the web portal using the credentials they established during registration. The portal will showcase candidates along with relevant information about them. Students will select their preferred candidate and confirm their choice. To ensure the integrity of the process, the system will permit each student to vote only once. Regarding Vote Count , the results should be displayed in a real-time, interactive format, such as a bar graph that fills up as votes are counted. Furthermore, the counting process should only commence after the election has concluded to guarantee fairness. This proposed system could be developed using a robust backend technology like Node.js, supported by a strong database solution such as MongoDB.

Alternative Answer

Creating an election system for a university requires the establishment of a multi-tier architecture that consists of various components, such as a database for storing student information, a server to handle requests, and a client-side application for processing and presenting data. For Voter Registration , we would develop a web application that allows students to register using their university credentials, with their identity being verified through an API that connects to the university's database. The Voting Process must be conducted anonymously to ensure the confidentiality of the votes. During the voting process, voters would access a list of candidates retrieved from the database. Once a user casts their vote, the server would record that the user has voted to prevent duplicate voting. Vote Counting and Display would occur in real-time. The client-side application would dynamically refresh the results page to show the vote count for each candidate as reported by the server. This system should ideally be developed using a combination of MySQL for the database, Java or Python for server-side functionality, and HTML/CSS/JavaScript for the client-side application.

Question Details

Difficulty & Category

Medium
system design

Companies

Meta (Facebook)

Product

For CandidatesFor RecruitersCompaniesBrowse JobsInterview QuestionsDeep ProfileSkill AssessmentOpportunity Matching
Prepin.ai

© 2026 Prepin LLC · Philadelphia, PA · All rights reserved.