By Dr Moses Amweelo
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, etc.
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.”
In terms of the administrative costs of elections, 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 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. Of these, seven (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 have 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.
In recent years, the topic of e-voting has raised much interest in many countries including Namibia. As Namibia geared up for the 2014 presidential and National Assembly elections, the introduction of electronic voting machines was necessary and highly efficient.
Electronic voting technology can include punched cards, optical scan voting systems and specialized voting kiosks (including self-contained direct-recording electronic voting systems).
It can also involve transmission of ballots and votes via telephones, private computer networks, or the internet.
In general, two main types of e-voting can be identified: e-voting which is physically supervised by representatives of governmental or independent electoral authorities (e.g. electronic voting machines located at polling stations); and remote e-voting where voting is performed within the voter’s sole influence, and is not physically supervised by representatives of governmental authorities (e.g. voting from one’s personal computer, mobile phone, television via the internet, also called i-voting).
Electronic voting technology can speed up the counting of ballots and can provide improved accessibility for disabled voters.
The e-voting platform aims to improve transparency and corporate governance standards and also helps in reducing the administrative cost associated with postal ballots while facilitating declaration of results immediately after the close of 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 the Electoral Commission of Namibia’s introducing this technology in our elections.
It addresses probabilities 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.