THE term electronic voting and also known as e-voting is a term inclusive of many systems and methods of voting. This includes booths equipped with electronic devices, software, peripherals, processing systems, equipment, tools and screen networks and means of communications. Qadah and Taha (2007) define the term electronic voting as the “use of computers or computerized equipment to cast votes in an election.” The authors continue to emphasize that “e-voting aims at increasing participation, lowering costs of running elections and improving the accuracy of the results.” According to the administration and cost of elections, electoral knowledge network (2010), countries such as the USA, Brazil and India have successfully implemented e-voting to address various challenges associated with the manual paper based electoral process.
It is in light of this that this study explores the challenges and prospects of adopting an e-voting system. It should also be noted that the study does not look into specific electronic voting systems, but rather the adoption and diffusion of electronic voting technologies in general. The electronic voting machine has now replaced the traditional mechanism of voting due to several advantages like security, automatic counting, etc.
Electronic voting is voting using electronic systems to aid casting and counting votes. An electronic voting machine consists of two units – a control unit and a balloting unit – joined by a five-meter cable. The control unit is with the presiding officer or a polling officer and the balloting unit is placed inside the voting compartment. Instead of issuing a ballot paper, the polling officer in charge of the control unit will press the ballot button. This will enable the voter to cast his/her vote by pressing the blue button on the balloting unit against the candidate and symbol of his choice.
The Brazilian electronic voting system is known in a number of countries. The Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Argentina, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti and Mexico have already used electronic voting machines developed by the superior electoral court in pilot projects.
Since 1996, when a third of Brazil’s electorate voted using voting machines, delegations from various countries visited Brazil to get to know Brazil’s electronic voting system.
In the 2010 election year alone, 31 countries sent missions to follow the Brazilian elections and get to know the Brazilian system. They were South Africa, Angola, Argentina, Benin, Cape Verde, China, Colombia, Congo, El Salvador, United States, France, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, India, Iran, Italy, Mexico, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Palestine, Paraguay, Portugal, Kenya, Russia, Sao Tomé and Príncipe, Sudan, East Timor, Turkey, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
As Namibia gears up for the 2014 Presidential and National Assembly elections, the introduction of electronic voting machines is necessary and highly efficient. The e-voting platform aims to improve transparency and corporate governance standards and also helps in reducing the administrative cost associated with postal ballot while facilitating declaration of results immediately after the close of the voting.
In fact, voting by electronic voting machines (EVMs) is simpler compared to the conventional system, where one has to put the voting mark on or near the symbol of the candidate of his choice, fold it first vertically and then horizontally and thereafter put it into the ballot box. In EVMs, the voter has to simply press the blue button against the candidate and symbol of his choice and the vote is recorded.
Rural and illiterate people will not have difficulty in recording their votes, in fact they will welcome the use of EVMs because they are very easy and fast. The big question is: do e-voting machines improve the voting system? Yes, the e-voting machine limits human fault, therefore I highly appreciate Electoral Commission of Namibia introducing this technology to be used on 28 November – it is better to have the e-voting machines than to do things by hand. It removes a lot of opportunities for human error, is faster, and allows a lot fewer election workers to handle the votes directly.
Properly implemented, e-voting solutions can increase the security of the ballot, speed up the processing of results and make voting easier. It will be easier to transport the EVMs compared to ballot boxes as EVMs are lighter, portable and come with polypropylene carrying cases. The vote-counting is very fast and the result can be declared within fewer hours as opposed to the hours under the ballot-paper system. Bogus voting can be greatly reduced by the use of EVMs. In case of the ballot paper system, a bogus voter can stuff thousands of bogus ballot papers inside the ballot box. But, an EVM is normally programmed to record only five votes in a minute. This will frustrate the bogus voters.
The control unit can store the result in its memory for about 10 years and even more. The battery is required only to activate the EVMs at the time of polling and counting. As soon as the polling is over, the battery can be switched off and this will be required to be switched on only at the time of counting.
Let’s go to our polling stations on 28 November 2014 and use the dynamic technology properly to cast votes for leaders who will take the country forward. The voting machines and related hardware components are of good quality and design, which is based on voting systems that have been reliable in use elsewhere for some years.
By Dr Moses Amweelo
•Dr Moses Amweelo is a former Minister of Works and Transport and currently a Swapo MP.