International Journal of Information Science 2013, 3(3): 63-69 DOI: 10.5923/j.ijis.20130303.03 A Neural Network Approach to Selection of Candidates for Electoral Offices by Political Parties A. E. Akinwonmi * , B. M. Kuboye, A. F. Thompson Department of Computer Science,The Federal University of Technology, Akure. P.M.B. 704 Abstract Useful governance comes from a reliable electoral process. Such begins from candidate selection within political parties. In Nigeria, factors such as electoral system, party ideology, political culture, and the organization of government, overtime had influenced candidates’ selection processes for the conduct of political party primaries invariably make it subjective. Thus candidates who make it through such process are not always the party’s best. Invariably, many of these candidates loose the general elections. Obviously, advancement in technology has gradually changed nearly every facet of live yet there exist exceptions in the area of democratizing the electoral system. In this paper, we present a feed forward/back propagation neural network based approach to selecting suitable candidates for elective positions before general elections. We had to enlarge the training dataset through interpolative synthesis. Our result proved that the approach was efficacious. In this report, we present an introduction to the problem and the methodology of solving the problem. Thereafter, we reported on the design, implementation and the results obtained from the system. We drew useful conclusions were later drawn from the results. Keywords Feed Forward, Back Propagation, Feed Forward Neural Network, Candidate Rating, Candidate Selection 1. Introduction Good governance is an upshot of a qualitative electoral process: beginning from candidate selection or nomination within political parties, permeating candidate screening by national electoral commission through to the actual contest in general elections. Factors such as electoral system, party ideology, political culture and the organization of government, overtime, had influenced candidates’ selection processes[1]. In some countries gerrymandeering is used to favour certain candidates. In the United States of America, the exact mode of which primaries or caucuses are conducted and the voting procedures for delegates is defined by each state's local office of political parties[2]. Education, career experiences and exposure of candidates can facilitate or undermine a candidate’s success in the polls.Many Americans believe that Sarah Palin (ex RepublicanVice Presidential candidate) was instrumental to McCain loss of election to Obama in the election that led to the latter’s victory in 2009. The pre-election debates revealed Palin as a “limited to career” person, hence she went off topic numerous of times during the debates. This was more revealing as she was unable to mention a name of a single newspaper or magazine which * Corresponding author: tobapro@yahoo.com (A. E. Akinwonmi) Published online at http://journal.sapub.org/ijis Copyright © 2013 Scientific & Academic Publishing. All Rights Reserved she had read[3]. In Nigeria, the precise process of candidate selection within most parties is not well grasped by the citizenry including many politicians. This is more so because available literature on intra-party processes is largely inadequate. Moreover, the ideal of what parameters and criteria to use for candidate selection varies largely within many political parties while it is vague in some. In general, political parties usually present candidates for general elections after selections are made through intra-party elections, recommendations or appointments. In most cases the parties. The survey by[4]on candidate selection criteria by parties further revealed that, education, professional experience, political experience, criminal records, origin, age and other basic demographics were used as criteria for selection in many cases. Certain selection criteria are specified in many cases. These may include gender representation in other cases[5]. In most successful elections, education, experiences and exposure of candidates have roles to play. These criteria are best described as rudimentary and they do not form the basis by which party delegates cast their votes. There has to be a more reasonable means of selecting a candidate from the ostensibly qualified lot within a political party. In that regard, we believe that candidate selection can be made more objective and goal-driven if quantifiable, resultant but consequential parameters are included as criteria for candidate selection. On such, each candidate can