Of electronic voting
Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Friday July 29, 2016 15:45
Presenting his ideal machine, Seeletso said for preliminary specifications, he wanted a stand-alone machine that would not require the use of electricity and has minimal chances of hacking and interference. “I have a calculator I have used for over 40 years now, we want something as efficient as that, it should also be user friendly, should require minimal recurrent cost with no need for software upgrades and should be flexible to work within the given parameters,” he said.
The EVM
Seeletso mentioned that of the three companies that were invited to present Electronic Voting Machines (EVM), only Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) came through. Seeletso was however quick to point out that once the Act is enacted they would either open up for tenders or appoint directly a company that would meet their specifications.
BEL, an Indian government company under the Ministry of Defence invented and designed the EVM. The machine uses a two-piece system with a balloting unit presenting the voter with a button for each choice connected by a cable to an electronic ballot box. An EVM has two units, control unit and balloting unit; a cable joins the two. The control unit is with the presiding officer or a polling officer and the balloting unit is placed inside the voting booth. Instead of issuing a ballot paper, the electoral officer in charge of the control unit will press the ballot button.
BEL representatives said court challenges over EVMs in India have failed. “There were a number of court challenges over the credibility of the EVMs, both in the Indian High Court and the Indian Supreme Court. All those cases were thrown out because no evidence of manipulation of the EVMs could be found; there have been no new cases reported in the past few years.”
Reactions
Following the presentations, curious stakeholders asked questions as to what would ascertain everyone that the machines could be trusted and not be manipulated. Political parties were assured by Seeletso that their technology experts will be involved as much as possible to ensure transparency.
Political analyst Professor Zibani Maundeni hailed the EVM. “These machines are reliable and I am satisfied with them. This is what people have been preaching about during consultation meetings that the IEC held before. It is not the first time that BEL made this presentation about the use of the machines. The political parties have been looking forward to use of electronic machines and they should welcome them than think of the bad,” Maundeni said. He urged IEC to educate people about it so that they could appreciate how the machines would work during elections and assure them that elections would not be rigged.
EVM experiences elsewhere
From early 2005 serious international debate has raged about whether or not EVMs in general, and those specifically manufactured by BEL are tamper proof or not.
Political commentators in India have attributed the unreliability of the voting machines to the fact that each step in the life cycle of a voting machine involves different people gaining access to the machines, often installing new software. They argued that problems can occur from the time the manufacturer develops and installs software on the machines to when they record votes and election officials transfer data to a central repository for tallying.
Critics point out that it would not be hard for anybody to install a parallel programme under another password on one, or many voting machines that would ensure one or other pre-determined outcome even before voters arrived at the poll stations. There has also been much speculation about whether or not the machines bought from India are programmable or not, which some say is the reason that Europe has banned electronic voting. The machines in Europe were programmable. Netherlands and Germany are some of the several countries across the world that has banned the use of EVMs declaring the machines unreliable.
The Namibian case
Prior to the Namibian elections in 2014, the Windhoek high court dismissed a legal challenge by an opposition political party. The Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) filed an urgent court application to seek the annulment and postponement of the presidential and National Assembly elections, arguing that the machines violate Namibia’s newly amended Electoral Act because they leave no paper trail.
The RDP had demanded that the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) reschedule “transparent elections”. It also wanted the annulment of municipal elections and four by-elections held earlier during the election year, in which voters used electronic machines to cast their ballots. In addition, the party demanded that the electoral body should ensure that in future elections the machines should generate a paper trail for every vote cast. The high court rejected the claims that the use of the e-voting machines was unconstitutional and a breach of the Electoral Act. The applicants raised concerns about whether the machines can be manipulated. They claimed they could not trust the technology because of the risk of pre-programming to favour the ruling party, Swapo.
Opposition parties, including the Workers Revolutionary Party, the Namibian Economic Freedom Fighters and Nudo, blamed the election mishaps on the EVMs, including the delay in the announcement of the Presidential and National Assembly results, which they claimed were being “cooked and manipulated behind closed doors” using the machines.
Technical experts from BEL said any delay in election results was not because of the machines. “Any election is a long process. Whatever delay there is, has nothing to do with the EVMs,” Kumar said, during an interview with The Namibian at the ECN headquarters on Monday. The Indians said Namibian opposition parties’ negative attitude towards the EVMs was not a new phenomenon for them. They have survived resistance from opposition parties in India over the same issue. Kumar said the Elections Commission of India has a technical experts committee that has looked into its operations and said India has been using the devices for years without any reported rigging or manipulation incidences.
The cost of the e-voting
Namibia spent N$61 million (about P45 million) purchasing 3,000 machines. Seeletso said they expect to spend around P100million to purchase the machines. “This will save us a lot of money as we spent P120million in paying overtime only after the 2014 elections, but we will be paying the P100million just once off,” he said.
In the current system, a huge number of civil servants are often roped in. The officers are then provided with transport, accommodation and food amongst other things. Seeletso said they would also no longer be spending on paper ballots and ballot boxes anymore.
Way forward
Concluding the workshop, Seeletso said after the enactment of the Bill they would start off by familiarising first of all their employees with the concept of electronic voting. “We will then develop specifications of the machine we want and open for tenders before procuring and training our staff and members of registered political parties,” he said. Seeletso said they would then move to voter education to ensure that Batswana get ready for the 2019 general elections.
How common EVMs models work:
l The voter checks in with the voter’s ID with poll officers. The polling personnel and the agents verify the name and identify the voter. They obtain signature or thumb print of the voter. To prevent double voting, they mark the voter’s right index finger with indelible ink.
l Next, a poll worker presses the BALLOT button on the control unit to allow one vote. This causes a green READY light to glow on the ballot unit.
l The voter enters the polling booth and presses the button for the candidate of his or her choice. A red light next to the candidate button glows, the READY light turns off, and the control unit emits a loud beep to indicate that the vote has been cast. The red light then turns off automatically. This process repeats for each voter.
l At the end of the poll, the presiding officer removes a plastic cap on the control unit and presses the CLOSE button, which prevents the EVM from accepting further votes. The ballot unit is disconnected and the control unit is placed in storage until the public count, which may occur weeks later.
l On the counting day, the control units are delivered to a counting centre. In public view, an election official breaks a seal on the control unit and presses the RESULT button. The display on the control unit shows a sequence of outputs: the number of candidates, the total votes, and the number of votes received by each candidate.
l The Counting officials manually record the totals from each machine and add them together to determine the results of the election. The machines are then placed in storage until the next election.