MIS781 Business

Intelligence and Database

Example - Election
Database Design
and Report
Group Assignment

This report has been prepared by:

GROUP Number
X, Y, Z NAME OF ALL STUDENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................... 2
General Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 2
Target Audiences ........................................................................................................................................... 2
Database Design Objectives ........................................................................................................................... 2
Database Design Benefits .............................................................................................................................. 2
Assumptions .................................................................................................................................................. 3
Attributes and Business Rules ........................................................................................................................ 3
DATABASE DESIGNS ................................................................................................................................... 6
Database 1: Voter Turnouts and Voting Results ............................................................................................. 6
Master Table .............................................................................................................................................. 6
1NF Table .................................................................................................................................................. 6
2NF Table .................................................................................................................................................. 7
3NF Table .................................................................................................................................................. 9
Database 2: Candidate Details with Voting Updates ..................................................................................... 11
Master Table ............................................................................................................................................ 11
1NF Table ................................................................................................................................................ 12
2NF Table ................................................................................................................................................ 13
3NF Table ................................................................................................................................................ 14
Database 3: Public Opinion Poll................................................................................................................... 16
Master Table ............................................................................................................................................ 16
1NF Table ................................................................................................................................................ 16
2NF Table ................................................................................................................................................ 17
3NF Table ................................................................................................................................................ 18
REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................................. 19

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INTRODUCTION

1. Introduction (2 marks)
-Overall introduction of your report (Database for simulated phishing campaigns dashboard)
-Mention your three main Target Audience
Example:
1. Phishing Campaign Manager
2. Individual User or Department Manager
3. HR Manager or CEO

Example:
General Introduction
The database designs presented in this report made use of presidential election data in the United States of
America across different years. With the country’s electoral college process being unique, the election system
can be deemed complicated and perplexing for most people. Hence, to assist different stakeholders in
understanding the process, evaluating results, and making decisions on various aspects of the election setting,
these database designs have been created.

Target Audiences
• Database 1: Civil society
• Database 2: Political parties
• Database 3: Election campaign teams

Database Design Objectives

• Database 1: In consideration of the civil society’s role in voter education and election monitoring
(International Foundation for Electoral Systems et. al, 2003), the Voter Turnouts and Voting Results
database design aims to provide easily accessible, perceptive, and reliable information on both voter
participation of various segments of the electorate and official popular vote results in order to assist with
the beneficiary’s voter engagement initiatives.
• Database 2: ….
• Database 3: …

Database Design Benefits

• Database 1: With the Voter Turnouts and Voting Results database design, the civil society would have a
clear picture of the turnout results of their segments of interest by finding all information needed in one
place. This would accelerate preparations for voter education training sessions for recipients that are at
risk of not voting due to lack of information, apathy, or sense of alienation, or those susceptible to
manipulation (International Foundation for Electoral Systems et. al, 2003). Having the popular vote result
together in the same database would also allow them to easily interpret the impact of voter turnout to
actual voting results. Also, the presence of the details in each state’s voting-eligible population and
registered voters would assist them in strategy and decision formulations. In addition, information on the
political parties and their respective ideologies would provide a helpful tool in voter education. In this
case, target setting, and information dissemination would be accurate, therefore making initiatives on
increasing voting turnouts efficient and effective.
• Database 2: …
• Database 3: …

Assumptions
DATABASE 1
• Voting-eligible population is composed of people who are above 18 years old and have the right and
capacity to vote regardless of voter registration status.
• Registered voters are people who have officially registered themselves to vote.
• Data on voting turnouts and popular votes are official presidential election results data collected from
valid resources.

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 • Data for poll turnout are collected from an official surveying body which conducts survey manually and
electronically.
• New voters are people voting for the first time regardless of their registration date.
• Ethnic minorities are ethnic groups not belonging to the following groups: White/European American,
Black/African American, Alaska Native/American Indian, Hispanic/Latino, Asian American, Hawaiian
Native
• Remote communities are towns which populations are less than 15,000.
• Candidates are official political party presidential representatives that have won the preliminary elections.
• Ideology refers to the political party’s current ideology and can change over time.
• ……

DATABASE 2
• The data represented in the database is for a particular day in between the voting days for the different
regions of states in US.
• The candidate must be a natural-born citizen of the United States, be at least 35 years old and above.
• …

DATABASE 3

• …

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Attributes and Business Rules

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2-DATABASE DESIGNS
(4 marks for each database and commentary: 1 mark for 1NF, 1m for 2NF, 1m for 3NF, 1 m for
comments)
Example:
Database 1: Voter Turnouts and Voting Results

Example:
The Voter Turnouts and Voting Results Database Design includes by state historical data of general presidential
election popular vote results and voter turnouts of various categories, state information, and details of each
political party’s presidential candidate.

1NF

Table 1.2. Voter turnouts and popular vote results per state

Table 1.2 has been created in order to meet the requirements of the first normal form, where all cells are single
valued, entries in a column are of the same type, and rows are uniquely identified:
 Turnout ID, State ID, and Candidate ID columns were created to act as primary keys in order to distinctly
determine the records.

Dependencies and Key Attributes

Figure 1.1. 1NF table dependency diagram

Even in its first normal form, the following anomalies still exist in Table 1.2:
 Insertion: Candidates who have not yet won the popular votes cannot be inserted
 Insertion: Turnouts for states that does not have results for the popular votes cannot be entered
 Deletion: If a candidate is deleted from the table, the corresponding records for the Popular vote results,
Voter turnouts, Voting-eligible population, and Registered voters tables will not be
lost
 Deletion: Given the relationship of party name and ideology, changing one item would remove the other
information from the database
 Update: If a presidential candidate was replaced before the general election, update will be done for all
tuples with the candidate’s information

To get rid of these anomalies, we further normalize the table into the second normal form.

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2NF

Table 1.3. Voter turnouts by state broken down into categories

Table 1.4. Popular vote results by state

Table 1.5. State details

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Table 1.6. Candidate details

By creating Tables 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, and 1.6, partial dependencies have been removed and the tables were reduced to
the second normal form, where all non-key attributes in the table are fully functionally dependent on the primary
key. With this, the following anomalies were eliminated:
 Insertion: Can now enter candidates who have not yet won the popular votes
 Insertion: Can now enter turnouts for states that does not have results for the popular votes
 Deletion: If a candidate is deleted from the table, the corresponding records for the Popular vote results,
Vote turnouts, Voting-eligible population, and Registered voters tables will not be lost
 Update: If a presidential candidate was replaced before the general election, update will only be done on
the Candidate details table

Dependencies and Key Attributes

Figure 1.2. 2NF tables dependency diagram

Even in its second normal form, the following anomalies still exist in Table 1.6:
 Insertion: Cannot enter the fact that a particular political party has an ideology unless Party Name is
recorded
 Deletion: If a particular candidate switches party before the general election, the information on the
previous party’s ideology is lost
 Update: If the ideology of the political party changes, all candidate records need to be updated

To get rid of these anomalies, we further normalise the table into the third normal form.

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3NF

Table 1.3. Voter turnouts by state broken down into categories

Table 1.4. Popular vote results by state

Table 1.5. State details

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Table 1.7. Candidate details (version 2)

Table 1.8. Political parties and ideologies

By creating the Political parties and ideologies table, the transitive dependency between Party Name and
Ideology has been removed and the Candidate details table was reduced to the third normal form, where all non-
key fields in a table are determined solely by its primary key. With this, the following anomalies were eliminated:
 Insertion: Can now enter ideologies for new/other parties that take part in the election
 Deletion: If a particular candidate switches party before the general election, the information on the
previous party’s ideology is maintained
 Update: The ideology of each political party appears only once

Dependencies and Key Attributes

Figure 1.3. 3NF tables dependency diagram

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With all the anomalies removed, we are now confident that the relations in Database 1 are satisfactory and are
more effective in inserting, updating, and deleting data.

Database 2:…
Database 3:…

REFERENCES
(use APA ref 1 mark) and report presentation (1 mark)
See: https://www.deakin.edu.au/students/studying/study-support/referencing/apa

Brancati, D. (n.d.). Global Elections Database. The Project. Global Elections Database.

http://www.globalelectionsdatabase.com/

Harewood, W. G. (2016). Comparing the advantages & disadvantages of first past the post, alternative voting

[AV] and proportional voting representation [PR] electoral systems. [Excerpt]. Parliament of Canada.

https://www.ourcommons.ca/content/Committee/421/ERRE/Brief/BR8555618/br-

external/HarewoodWGlenn-e.pdf

International Foundation for Electoral Systems, International IDEA, UN Department of Economic and Social

Affairs (2003). Voter Education. ACE Project. https://aceproject.org/main/english/ve/index.htm

McDonald, M. P. (2018, September 5). 2016 November General Election Turnout Rates. United States

Elections Project. http://www.electproject.org/2016g

McDonald, M. P. (2020, December 7). 2020 November General Election Turnout Rates. United States

Elections Project. http://www.electproject.org/2020g

Open Knowledge Foundation and Open Data for Development Network. (2016). Election Results. Global Open

Data Index. https://index.okfn.org/dataset/elections/

Pew Research Center (2008). Inside Obama’s Sweeping Victory. Pew Research.

https://www.pewresearch.org/2008/11/05/inside-obamas-sweeping-victory/

Sharda, R. et. al. (2016). Business Intelligence, Analytics, and Data Science: A Managerial Perspective (4th

edition). Pearson.

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 MIS781 – Business Intelligence and Database

Trimester 1, 2024

Group Assignment
GROUP MEMBER CONTRIBUTION FORM

Group Number:

Name (Print) Student ID %Contribution Signature*

1. 33.3%

2. 33.3%

3. 33.3%

Note: * By signing here, I hereby declare that this is my original work.

If every member of the group contributes equally, the figure entered in the ‘%Contribution’ column
should be 33.3% for a 3-member group. This page should be signed by each member of the group and
attached to the end of the report.

Note: Where there is significant variation in group contributions, marks may be adjusted individually
among group members.

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