Congo is scheduled to
hold elections on December 23. However, the results of the election are already
the source of much controversy.
For months, activists,
international observers and even the
government of the United States have warned that the election system
to be deployed for the first time can be manipulated. Recent corruption
scandals involving the vendor who provided the voting machines (Miru Systems), a
fire that incinerated some voting machines, in addition to activist protesting
against the use of the technology have increased tensions ahead of the polls.
Security experts have
voiced their concern surrounding the more than 100 thousand machines that will
be deployed on the day of the election. A report from the
Sentry published in June revealed "potential threats to the
secrecy of the ballot and manipulation of results." The Sentry is a
surveillance group that investigates corruption and problems in Africa.
Lorenzo Hall, Chief
technologist at the Washington-based Center for Democracy & Technology, stated
in the Sentry report: “QR codes may store more information than simply a
voter’s ballot selections, potentially including the time a person voted, their
place in line and other voter-specific or ballotspecific identifiers. This
information can be used to correlate the contents of a ballot to a specific voter’s
identity, violating ballot secrecy.”
Recently, a
fire in Congo’s capital destroyed nearly 80 percent of the capital city’s
voting machines just 10 days before the presidential election.
Officials claimed that the blaze, which burned nearly 8,000 of the capital’s
10,368 voting, appeared to be criminal but vowed that it would not disrupt the
vote.
Adding to the
controversy, Miru System, the company that provided the voting machines has
been embroiled
in corruption scandals in South Korea. Authorities in the Asian
country are investigating whether or not A-WEB, an Association of World
Election Bodies funded by the South Korean government, used its influence to
help Miru Systems sign multi-million dollar deals in Congo and elsewhere.
Congolese activists who
live in Korea have asked the Korean government to ban Miru Systems from
supplying the machines to his country. Although their voices have not been
heard, both A-WEB and the South Korean government have
issued statements distancing themselves from Miru Systems and the
Congolese election.
