Using Multiple Accounts from a single physical machine

Question

​Hey all, I was wondering something. I am planning to create a simple Voting Dapp for a closed election, where a number of accounts will be set up ahead of time and pre-authorised to vote. The Voting Contract will contain a Whitelist to know whether or not someone who makes a call to its functions should be allowed to vote. My question is this: the number of PCs that I have (maybe twelve or so) is far less than the number of prospective voters I have. Ideally, I would like to be able to use the PCs in a manner akin to Voting Stations: that is, they would be able to log in and make a vote on an Account, which would be unique to them, but which would be only one of many accounts available on that particular PC. Is this possible? Would it require, say, Metamask accounts? I'm unclear as to what an architecture like this would look like.

Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

To elaborate on JAG's answer - if you run a local Ethereum blockchain like Ganache, you get 10 accounts with 100ETH each by default (or you can configure it for any other number of accounts/value). Then connect your Metamask to that network (http://localhost:7545) and add private keys that show in Ganache, to Metamask (via Import account menu).

Then in Metamask you can switch between all the accounts you add and run send a transaction as a currently active account. I am doing exactly that for my multi-account dapp testing.

Answer 2

MetaMask supports multiple wallets from a single log on or you can have the user restore their wallets from a seed phrase.

If you choose to use the option of having multiple accounts from a single login of MetaMask then there is an easy to use drop-down style menu which is quite user-friendly (easier than restoring from passphrase)