Bulgarian E-Voting Referendum Opens Overseas Polling Stations

Technology has become an integral part of just about every aspect of contemporary society. Computers are used in nearly every line of work, smartphone adoption is at an all-time high, and a growing number of tasks are being performed over the Internet, including online banking and passport renewals. The use of technology in elections is also growing on a global scale.

In Bulgaria, a referendum was proposed last year that would posit three questions as they related to elections in the Balkan nation. Since that time, the referendum has been further revised to include only one question to be asked of the Bulgarian people: are they in favor of or are they opposed to the adoption of electronic voting technology in future elections? This may also include the possibility of remote e-voting too.

While it may have once been assumed that the people of Bulgaria would only be able to vote in this referendum if they are physically present at a polling station in Bulgaria that was not the case when the referendum was held on October 25. Indeed, 312 polling stations were opened in 45 countries around the world to allow Bulgarians to voice their opinion on the issue from abroad. These included polling stations in such nations as the United States, Germany and Turkey, among dozens of others.

The point here is that the results of this referendum and the profound ramifications that it could have on the electoral process in Bulgaria affect not only the people who live and work in the country itself, but also for expatriates and overseas workers. Expatriate voting has become a hot issue in recent months with dramatic changes in Canada and an increased push for voting for Swiss living abroad. By opening the referendum to Bulgarians in 45 other countries, the government has clearly indicated that expatriate and absentee opinion matters.

The referendum also highlights two other important topics. First, it could serve as a viable experiment for how e-voting and remote voting could be best implemented in actual elections and not only in referendums. Second, it could also help to build popular interest in the advancement of e-voting in the nation of Bulgaria and for Bulgarians living abroad.

The potential was there. The opportunity was there. This referendum could have marked a major milestone for Bulgaria, helping to propel its democracy ahead today and into the future.

Unfortunately, despite the efforts of opening overseas polling stations and working to increase public interest in the mechanics of democracy, the referendum ultimately did not live up to its promise. This was attributed to insufficient voter turnout. Even though 69.5 percent of those who participated did vote in favor of remote online voting, only 40 percent of eligible voters responded to the referendum.

The laws are such that the voter turnout must be at least at the same level as that of the last parliamentary elections. In this case, 48.66 percent of voters turned out for the 2014 parliamentary elections and thus the referendum came up nearly 9 percent short of this mark.

President Rosen Plevneliev is undeterred, stating that “voters want to be asked and expect to be heard.” Even though the results of the referendum are not binding, Plevneliev says that it would be a “big political mistake” to ignore them. And so, the saga toward increased e-voting and remote e-voting in Bulgaria continues. If nothing else, this referendum indicates that voter apathy must be addressed and the issues surrounding technology in the democratic process must continue to be pushed to the forefront of the conversation. 

Hillary Clinton's voting reform calls for automated registration

Leading up to the 2016 Presidential elections in the United States, Americans have many questions that are yet to be answered. Who will be the Republican nominee? Who will be the nominee for the Democrats? What will the voter registration and the actual voting process be like in each of the individual jurisdictions across the country?

Some people are saying that Jeb Bush could gain the nomination to run under the Republican Party banner, while former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will get the nod from the Democratic Party. None of this has been officially decided yet, but that hasn't stopped Clinton from leaping onto the political stage with a few bold statements.

In early June of this year, Hillary Clinton delivered a speech in Texas calling for voting law reform in the United States. While the potential presidential candidate touched on several different points in her talk, the one that is getting the most attention is the call for all Americans to be automatically registered to vote when they turn 18 years of age.

This would represent a major effort to encourage voter turnout among the American electorate. While it may be true that this represents just a political gambit on the part of Clinton in an effort to get votes, debating the notion of automatic and universal voter registration is a conversation that holds merit. Indeed, this could add as many as 50 million Americans to the voter rolls.

It is practically impossible for this voter reform to take place before the elections in November 2016, but the wheels could be put in motion for the mid-term elections of 2018 or possibly the next Presidential election in 2020.

The point of automatic and universal voter registration – ideally using an online or electronic voter registration system that is faster, more accurate and more efficient than manually completing and submitting a paper form – is inclusion, particularly improving access among the impoverished and the disenfranchised. By making it easier to vote and by addressing issues of voter registration, voter turnout in America would presumably improve too. And improved voter turnout makes for a better and more representative democracy.

Another reform that Hillary Clinton suggests is to extend the voting period to 20 days, providing easier access and better convenience for voters to exercise their right to franchise. This could help to reduce or even eliminate some of the remarkably long lines that have plagued previous election days, but it may or may not be effective in raising voter turnout.

Michael Waldman of Politico.com says that the current “ramshackle voter registration system” in the United States “disenfranchises more people by accident than even the harshest new laws do on purpose.” A new system of automatic and electronic voter registration would practically eliminate the “piles of paper records” that plague the current system, minimizing typos and keeping voter rolls more up to date.

If the nation moves to hold more conversations regarding automatic voter registration and how it can improve voter turnout, then the American democracy could be moving in the right direction.

Learning about the Du-Vote internet voting system

Proponents of Internet-based voting systems for official government elections continue to gain support in countries all around the world. Considering that so much of our daily lives is conducted online, including online banking and secure business transactions, it only makes sense that many voters would want to have the same level of convenience and security when exercising their democratic right to vote.

When voting in person at an official polling station, voters are typically asked to authenticate their identity in some form. They are also checked against the official electoral roll of registered voters. Since this involves some necessary interaction with an election official, the public perception is that this kind of voter identification is more safe and secure. By contrast, a person who uses Internet voting can cast his or her ballot from the privacy and convenience of the home, workplace, or even from a mobile device. Who is there to verify the identity of the voter?

While the I-voting system of Estonia continues to lead the way with its infrastructure of validated citizen identification cards, a different system is being developed by researchers from the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom. This system, dubbed Du-Vote, borrows much of its inspiration from the secure infrastructure and controls used by online banking.

One of the major concerns cited by critics and detractors of Internet voting is that election officials have no real way of validating the hardware on which the voter casts his or her ballot. This is stark contrast to the level of control an electoral commission would have over the development, deployment and use of electronic voting machines at traditional polling places. The machines belong to (or are being rented by) the electoral officials. With Internet voting, the citizen casts his or her ballot from a personal device, like a computer, tablet or possibly even a smartphone.

The Du-Vote system overcomes this concern by using independent hardware devices that are then connected to the end user's computer. Lead researcher Professor Mark Ryan explains that the system uses a “credit card-sized device similar to those used in online banking... you receive a code on the device and type it back into the computer.”

How is this advantageous? The credit card-sized device is fully controlled and vetted by election officials. It is made to be as secure, private and confidential as possible, just like with online banking. The security device is independent, so even if the home or work computer of the voter has been compromised with viruses and other security threats, the legitimacy and integrity of the security device is maintained. And because the security device is so much more specific in its purpose, it is far less susceptible to being compromised.

Many people may be concerned about the security of Internet-based voting and these issues are clearly worthy of debate. Even so, online voting could have the somewhat paradoxical effect of better securing elections than their more traditional paradigms and, at the same time, it could help to encourage greater voter turnout too.

The Du-Vote system has only been under development for two-and-a-half years and the researchers say they need further testing before the system can be suitably deployed. Current estimates are that it may be ready in time for the 2025 general election in the United Kingdom. That's in line with the more optimistic view of SRI International senior computer scientist Jeremy Epstein. He states that secure e-voting is at least 10 years away, but his more conservative estimate is more like 20 to 30 years. He calls for two-factor authentication, for instance, among other concerns.

More on the Du-Vote system will be presented next month at the 28th IEEE Computer Security Foundations Symposium in Verona, Italy.

E-voting can improve access to democracy for Zambians

U.S. President Abraham Lincoln once stood for a “government of the people, by the people [and] for the people.” Indeed, one of the most important pillars of a strong and legitimate democracy is one wherein eligible citizens can and do have a voice in who governs them. This is regardless of sex, religion, social status or geographic limitations. To this end, it is always in the best interest of a fair, honest and transparent election to provide the greatest possible access to the polls to the greatest number of eligible voters as possible.

In countries where literacy rates may be low, this might mean having ballots where even those who cannot read can still understand who they are voting for. It also means having ballots where people with physical limitations, like impaired vision or mobility, can still cast a vote. And while it is indeed true that urbanization continues to be on the rise all around the globe, there are still substantial populations who live in more rural and remote areas. And these populations deserve to have their voice heard.

And that is precisely why electronic voting technology is being encouraged ahead of the upcoming elections in the African country of Zambia. The people of Zambia are spread all across its country and some even end up in foreign lands in search of a better life or improved job prospects. These people are still entitled to take part in democratic processes.

Zambian President Edgar Lungu has stated on the record that he is in favour of adopting electronic voting technologies in the country, even though opposition FDD spokesperson Antonio Mwanza says that the government should focus on acquiring local printers for printing ballots first. Mwanza feels the ballot papers should be printed locally and not in South Africa, but e-voting can potentially eliminate the need for the printing of ballot papers altogether.

In the case of a voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT), the printers can be integrated as part of the larger e-voting system and ecosystem as a cohesive approach to democracy. President Lungu has the support of other parties for adopting e-voting too, including the United Party for National Development (UPND). Party representative Edwin Lifwekelo says the system would be good for counting and voting purposes and that it would ensure full participation of the Zambian people in the electoral system.

One of the biggest motivating factors for adopting electronic voting systems in Zambia is precisely that: to provide greater access to the democratic process for all Zambians, regardless of where they are located. Education and infrastructure will surely play critical roles in the selection, deployment and running of the e-voting system, but these are investments in the future of Zambia and a more engaged electorate is positive for the African country.

The Zambian government and its electoral commission can look not only to its other African neighbors for support and guidance from their own early experiences with democracy and e-voting, including biometric voter registration and authentication, but also to the many other democracies around the world that have had to deal with having voters spread over a large geographic region.

Two such examples are those demonstrated in the Philippines and Australia. Remote voting was enabled by the use of electronic voting technology. Several thousand ballots were cast in the 2013 Philippine election in this manner and the Australian government continues to invest in its iVote system as a viable and reliable alternative to postal voting. Traditional polling stations will always have a place in a modern democracy, but remote voting needs must also be addressed.

The next general election in Zambia is scheduled to take place in September 2016.

Putting a finger on Nigeria's biometric woes

To say that Nigeria has faced its fair share of problems, challenges and even crises would be a severe understatement. Even so, the government and the people of Nigeria are working hard to turn things around for the young democracy that still battles with corruption and severe infrastructure issues. Nigeria is a nation in transition and it is struggling to conduct fair, free and transparent elections. It has had a long history of government abuses that it must now work to overcome.

Working toward this ambitious and righteous goal, Nigeria implemented a biometric voter verification system for its most recent federal elections held toward the end of March 2015. Muhammadu Buhari defeated incumbent Goodluck Jonathan by the narrowest of margins, earning just under 54% of the popular vote. For this election, every Nigerian voter was supposed to receive a permanent voter card that stores his or her biometric information for the purposes of authentication at the polls.

While Nigeria has already had an Automated Fingerprint Identification System for a few years, the old system was only used to create a digital register. This was designed to prevent multiple voting at the polls by eliminating doubles from the voter register. With the new system, the identity of the voter is more accurately authenticated to prevent ballot stuffing from “ghost” votes, underage voting, and otherwise illegal or unauthorized votes.

Unfortunately, the 2015 elections in Nigeria were marred with a number of issues and these were already demonstrated in an early mock polling held a few weeks before the actual election itself. In that trial run, held in 225 polling units and 358 voting centres across the country, many of the identity card readers took as many as 20 minutes for the verification process. What's more, over 40 percent of the voters who participated in the early test were not identified by the system. They reportedly had valid voter smart cards, but they were not recognized.

These issues were not suitably rectified ahead of the March 28 election day. The election itself faced several technical glitches that resulted in the need to extend voting to the following day. Again, the verification process simply took too long or didn't work at all. The adoption of e-voting technology in general and biometric authentication in particular has been a challenge for the African continent with significant problems experienced by other elections, like those in Ghana in 2012, as well.

The causes of these problems in Nigeria are similarly mirrored across other African democracies. The malfunctioning technology can be traced back to poor implementation by electoral commissions, not performing the needed due diligence well ahead of Election Day. The lack of proper infrastructure is another concern, like the lack of reliable electricity access. In Nigeria in particular, the elections were also troubled with attacks by the Boko Haram terrorist group, who disrupted many of the day's proceedings.

Another big issue with biometric voter registration and authentication? Dirty hands. The fact of the matter is that biometric fingerprint readers will always work best with clean hands. However, a significant proportion of the Nigerian population have dirty hands from working the gardens or cooking over a charcoal or firewood stove. Their hands can be dirty or oily when they reach the polling stations and this can create problems for the biometric authentication process.

For this reason, as popular as fingerprint readers may be in the context of biometric authentication, alternative technologies may need to considered for regions such as Nigeria. There are promising possibilities afforded by iris scans, for example, though the technology may be more costly than fingerprint scanners.

The road toward a fair, open, transparent and secure election in Nigeria will be a long and arduous one filled with many more challenges to come. The experience with this year's election was surely a difficult one, but there is hope and potential for a brighter tomorrow. Positive steps were taken in Namibia's first election with e-voting technology, for example, and Tanzania would be well advised to take the Nigerian experience under consideration as it looks toward its own national election later this year.