If statement skips first condition. Trying to follow 1-4 Steps - if-statement

Question

I am trying to make a virtual voting booth that accepts the user id encrypts it, verifies and validates voter id, then checks if the voter has already voted. But it skips the first condition. I'm not an expert programmer. I'm new and just learning python. I need your help! Thank you in advance for your expertise!
These are the steps:
Step 1: Voter generates a pair of private and public keys – for the purpose of digital signature. Voter uses his private key to sign his request and the public key of the CLA to send his/her message. The message must include the voter’s signed id, say, SSN (request) and the voter’s public key. The public keys of the CLA and CTF may be passed to a voter when he/she starts the session.
Step 2: CLA reads the message sent on Step 1 using its private key and, using the voter’ public key, finds the voter’s id . CLA encrypts the validation number using its private key and sends it to the voter. The voter finds the validation number, using the public key of the CLA.
Step 3: The CLA sends the list of validation numbers to the CTF using a symmetric key negotiated between CLA and CTF.
Step 4: The message from the user to the CTF must be encrypted using the public key of CTF.
The result show this:
C:\Python27\python.exe "C:/Python Projects/Virtual Election Booth/VEB.py"
Welcome to the Vitrual Election Booth.
Enter your voter id:1234
You have already voted! Thank you!
Process finished with exit code 0
Here is the code below:
from collections import Counter
import random
from Crypto.Hash import SHA256
from Crypto.PublicKey import RSA
from Crypto import Random
random_generator = Random.new().read
key = RSA.generate(1024, random_generator) #generate pub and priv key
pubkey = key.publickey() # pub key export for exchange
vote_id = raw_input( '''\nWelcome to the Vitrual Election Booth.\n
Enter your voter id:''')#input from user
hash = SHA256.new(vote_id).digest() #creates vote id hash
encdata = pubkey.encrypt(vote_id, 32) #creates encrypted pubkey of hash
signature = key.sign(hash, pubkey)#signs the id and pubkey
assert pubkey.verify(hash, signature)
assert not pubkey.verify(hash[:-1], signature)
m = random.randint(4, 1000)
rand_val_num = random.randint(1, m)
encdata_2 = pubkey.encrypt(rand_val_num, 32)
file = open('cla.txt', 'w') #opens cla file (as a server)
file.write(str(encdata))#writes to cla file (saved vote_id hash to server)
decrypt_id = key.decrypt(encdata)
file.write(decrypt_id)
file.write(str(encdata_2))
file.close() #closes file
file = open('cla.txt', 'r')
verify_vote = file.read()#assign verify_vote to read file
if decrypt_id == verify_vote:
print '\n'
print 'Your voter id is verified!'
print '\n'
Vote = raw_input('Please place your vote: ')
file = open('ctf.txt', 'a') #open cla file (as a server)
file.write(str(publickey)) #writes publickey to cla file
file.write('\n')
file.write(Vote)
file.write('\n')
file.close() #closes file
else:
print('\n')
print 'You have already voted! Thank you!'
print '\n'

Answer 1

From looking at the code it looks like you are comparing decrypt_id with all the content in the file which contains more than just the decrypt_id data. Thus the if statement will never be executed as the data is not the same.

Answer 2

When you file.read(), you read the entire contents of the file, which you previously wrote with str(encdata), decrpyt_id, and str(encdata_2). For the sake of explanation, let's say encdata is 1, decrypt_id is 2, and encdata_2 is 3. verify_vote would be a string containing "123" - since that's what you wrote - and decrypt_id would be a string containing "2". The only case in which that if statement would evaluate to true is if both encdata and encdata_2 were empty strings.
Edit: Taking a longer look at this code, it looks like the purpose of the if statement is to prevent users from voting multiple times. What you might want to consider doing is creating a list of decrypt_ids which you add to each time a voter's id is verified and then make the if statement if decrypt_id not in verified_list:
So, the if block would become
if decrypt_id not in verified_list:
print '\n'
print 'Your voter id is verified!'
print '\n'
Vote = raw_input('Please place your vote: ')
file = open('ctf.txt', 'a') #open cla file (as a server)
file.write(str(publickey)) #writes publickey to cla file
file.write('\n')
file.write(Vote)
verified_list.append(decrypt_id)
else:
print '\n'
print 'You have already voted! Thank you!;
print '\n'
Another thing to note is that you open cla.txt for reading but never close it. You should place a file.close() after verify_vote = file.read().