Name______________

ST. THOMAS TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL

CXC-CSEC
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

General Proficiency

SCHOOL-BASED ASSESSMENT

Please note that minor adjustment may be made by the teacher

Description of the Project

National general elections have been a recurring feature among the
democratic territories of the Caribbean. Every year, in one territory or
another, citizens exercise their right to elect a government of their choice.
However, the exercise is not without its attendant challenges of data
management. Thousands of votes are cast on the day of the elections and
an anxious, waiting public demands speed, efficiency and accuracy in the
determination of results.

In preparation for the actual exercise, the Trinbarjam Elections Commission

has hired you to simulate the elections exercise as a test run, prior to the
actual elections which are to take place shortly in your country. You are
required to utilize suitable wordprocessing, spreadsheet, database
management as well as a programming application to design and implement
computer-based solutions to the tasks involved in the simulation of the
election process.

Spreadsheet Due Date: Wednesday September 6, 2017

(This section is directly linked to end of year term grades and CSEC
I.T recommendation)

The Elections Commission has mandated that you design a spreadsheet that
will accept pertinent data on constituencies and candidates’ votes and
generate information that would enable the outcome of the elections to be
divulged to the population in the shortest possible time. Four parties contest
the elections: the

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 Democratic Action Party (DAP)
Workers National Alliance (WNA)
United Progressive Movement (UPM)
Peoples Democratic Revolution (PDR)
Elections are contested to determine representatives in eight
constituencies.=
Constituencies
East St. Thomas
West St. Thomas
North Portland
West Portland
East St. Mary
West St. Mary
North St. Andrew
West St. Andrew

The representative being the candidate who gets the most votes in his/her
constituency. The parties field candidates in every constituency except for
the PDR, which fields candidates in just six of the eight constituencies.

For each constituency, you are required to:

1. Create a table in your spreadsheet that records the number of Electors,

Percentage voter turnout, Number of votes cast, the percentage of
Spoilt ballots and the number of General votes.

Number of Number of Percentag Number of Percentag Number of

Electors votes cast e voter Spoilt e of Spoilt General
turnout votes ballots

The number of electors registered in each constituency ranges from

6,250 to 10,795. The percentage voter turnout in each constituency is
projected to be from a low of 45% to a high of 82%. Number of votes
cast is determined by the Number of Electors x % Voter Turnout. The
percentage of spoilt ballots varies from one constituency to another,
but never exceeds 2.5% in any constituency. General votes are
calculated as the: ( votes cast) – (spoilt votes).

For each constituency, design a spreadsheet that accepts the

candidate’s name, party acronym, rating, % of votes, and number of
votes received. The rating is a value from 1 to 4 and is
determined by the results of a recent poll conducted in each
constituency by a noted pollster. Apart from the candidate’s

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 rating, the pollster also supplies the % of votes each candidate is likely
to receive, based on the popularity rating. The actual number of votes
received is that percentage of the General votes.

You must enter data for each candidate in each of the eight
constituencies.

Save your spreadsheet as Elections 01.

2. Modify your spreadsheet to reflect the following.

(i) Votes cast by Special voters must be considered and counted.

Insert a row in an appropriate part of your spreadsheet table to
record the number of special votes cast in each constituency.

(ii) Insert a column in an appropriate part of your spreadsheet to

record the number of special votes received by each candidate.
The special votes for each constituency are divided equally
among the candidates in that constituency. Insert another
column which records the total votes received by each candidate
in each constituency. Total votes received are calculated as
General votes + Special votes.

(iii) Insert rows in appropriate part of your spreadsheet that

calculate, for each constituency, the total number of special
votes, and the total number of votes received by candidates.

(iv) Insert a column that indicates whether a refund is due to a

candidate. This column should state “Refund Due” or “No
Refund”. A refund is due if the candidate’s total votes received
equals or exceeds 20% of Votes Cast in the constituency.

Save your spreadsheet as Elections 02.

Perform further modifications to your spreadsheet to reflect the

following.

(i) In an appropriate part of your spreadsheet, create a table that

lists the constituencies, and the total number of votes received
by each party in each constituency.

(ii) Sort the candidates’ data for each constituency. This should be
sorted in descending order on total votes received.

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 (iii) Generate a column graph that compares the votes received by
each party by constituency. Name this graph ‘Votes by
Constituency’.

(iv) Generate a graph that compares the parties by name (acronym)

and the total number of votes each received in the election.
Each slice of the chart must be labeled to show the number of
votes received and the % of votes received overall. Name this
chart ‘Vote Distribution by Party’.
Save your spreadsheet as Elections 03.

Database Management Due Date: Monday September 11, 2017

You are asked to use a suitable application to manage data on candidates

nominated to contest seats in the general elections. Three tables/files must
be used to store the data.

Personal
data
Name,
Address,
DOB,
Sex,
Profession,
Constituency
,
Party
acronym
Deposit Paid
Deposit
Refund
Total votes
received
.

Each candidate pays a deposit of $5000. (This deposit is refunded should the
candidate garner 20% or more of the votes cast in his constituency).

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 Constituency
data
Constituency name,
Number of electors,
Number of votes
cast
Number of special
votes.

A table must also be made that outlines the name and acronym of each
party. Data must be sourced from the spreadsheet section of your project.

You should test your database by generating queries to find the following.

1. The candidate ID, name, sex, age and profession of all candidates from
the Peoples Democratic Revolution (PDR).

2. The candidate name, party acronym, number of electors and number

of votes received for candidates in constituencies with more than 6500
voters and where the candidates received less than 500 of the votes
cast.

3. Special votes expressed as a percentage of the overall number of

voters in each constituency. Your query should also show the
constituency name field. The percentage should be expressed to two
places of decimal.

4. The candidates who received less than 20% of votes in their

constituencies. Your query should show the candidate(s) name, party
acronym, constituency, number of voters and votes received.

5. All male candidates who are less than or equal to 40 years old and who
received more than 40% of the votes cast in their respective
constituencies. You must also show the dates of birth, name, number
of votes received as well as the number of voters.

6. Calculate the sum of the deposits to be refunded to each party (only

candidates who received 20 percent or more of votes are eligible for
refund). Show the party name, acronym and sum refunded to each
party.

Generate a report which lists the final results of the election. The report
should list the constituency, party acronym, number of votes received, sex
and name of candidates. The report should be sorted by constituency.

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Within each constituency the report should be sorted by number of votes
received. It should also give the total and average number of votes cast in
each constituency. The report should have a two-line title as follows:

“Official Results
Trinbarjam National Elections”

Wordprocessing Due Date: Friday September 15, 2017 and Monday

September 18, 2017

(this section is directly linked to end of year term grades and CSEC
I.T recommendation)
Final Date: task 1 with task 2, this is done after database
completion –

1. Create a letter head that is appropriate to represent Trinbarjam

Elections Commission.

2. Each candidate must complete and submit a nomination form to the

Trinbarjam Elections Commission. You are required to design the
nomination form. It must allow for the entry of relevant data on the
candidate, including the constituency which he intends to contest.

The form must be designed on letter sized paper and must have a 0.7”
margin on the left and right sides. The letterhead of the Trinbarjam
Elections Commission must be placed at the top.

3. The results of the national elections must be delivered to every

candidate. Using a suitable feature of your Wordprocessing
application, and data from the database section of your project, create
a document which should be mailed to candidates. The letter should
come from the Chairman of the Trinbarjam Elections Commission.

The first paragraph should congratulate and thank the candidate

(insert candidate’s name in the letter) for the manner in which he/she
conducted his/her campaign and invite him/her to view the complete
listing of results.

Insert the report “Official Elections Results” from your database into
the document at this point. The final paragraph should congratulate
the winners, and the winning party. The chairman should then invite
who are qualify for a refund to visit the head office of the Commission
to collect their deposit payment.

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 You are required to print letters addressed to the first three and last
candidate only from your database listing.

The commission’s letterhead should be placed at the head of your

document and an appropriate footer inserted. The text in the
footer must be center aligned.

Problem-Solving

1. Develop an algorithm or write pseudocode to determine the winning

candidate for a constituency in the national elections. The algorithm
must accept as input the names of the four candidates and the number
of votes each candidate receives. The successful candidate is the one
who received the most votes.

Print the name of the winner and the number of votes he/she received.

2. Design and execute a trace table that accepts vote data at a polling
station in a constituency. Data should include special votes, general
(valid) votes and spoilt votes. Votes should be cast for any one of four
parties, DAP, WNA, UPM or PDR. The table should trace the increment
of each vote category and determine which party secured the majority
of votes. The table should have at least ten iterations and should end
when a specific value is entered.

Program Implementation

3. Using the programming language Pascal, write program code to

implement the algorithm in (1) above.