How Technology Reshaped Malawi's 2025 Election

 

 

Malawi's 2025 General Election offers a high-impact lesson for election managers: technology creates real value when it is treated as part of an institution's everyday operating capacity, not as a standalone innovation.

A Post-Election Review prepared for the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) with the support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) found that integrated digital systems strengthened operational efficiency, data integrity and electoral service delivery across the electoral cycle. The review was commissioned by MEC and drew on stakeholder consultations across the country. MEC has also published an overview of the post-election review process here.

The review concludes: "The successful integration of digital systems demonstrated the Commission's growing institutional capacity to modernize electoral management while strengthening operational efficiency, data integrity and service delivery." (Post-Election Review, p. 77)

In 2025, digital tools moved beyond isolated use cases to become an integral part of electoral administration. That progress reflected MEC's ownership and operation of the technology, supported by the staff, procedures, communications and infrastructure required to make it work in a high-stakes national election.

In the review's words: "Technology was no longer deployed as a series of isolated innovations but had become an integral component of electoral administration across multiple stages of the electoral cycle." (Post-Election Review, p. 77)

Technology across the electoral cycle

The deployment included 6,500 Election Management Devices (EMDs) and 15,200 Biometric Voter Verification Devices (BVVDs).

The EMDs supported voter registration and transfers, register verification, candidate nominations, and results management, reducing manual processes and improving the management of electoral data.

At polling stations, BVVDs supported voter identification and verification. The review records that approximately 85 percent of voters were biometrically verified on election day. Stakeholder feedback in the report associates biometric verification with stronger safeguards against impersonation and manipulation, and greater transparency in the voting process.

Stakeholders reported: "The BVVD increased transparency and public trust by preventing impersonation and manipulation." (Post-Election Review, p. 78)

These are important outcomes, but they should not be read as a claim that technology alone creates confidence. The lesson is more practical: technology strengthens confidence when it supports clear procedures, is used competently by election staff, and is understood by voters, political actors and observers.

Visibility at every stage of results processing

The review also highlights the results-management process, which digitized, transmitted and tabulated results from constituency tally centers to the national tally center. A digital results pipeline is not only a matter of speed; it makes the process more visible, traceable and manageable when results are under intense public scrutiny.

Stakeholder comments recorded in the review indicate that the speed and visibility of this digital process contributed to an orderly conclusion of results processing. That does not remove the need for transparent legal procedures, auditable records and clear public communication. Rather, it shows how well-integrated systems can reinforce those safeguards at a moment when trust matters most.

Analysts have since linked that same clarity to a broader democratic outcome: a decisive, quickly confirmed result allowed President Chakwera to concede early, which eased pressure on the judiciary and lowered the risk of post-election disputes (Chatham House).

The stakeholder feedback is explicit: "The speed and visibility of this digital pipeline contributed heavily to an undisputed, orderly conclusion of the results processing phase." (Post-Election Review, pp. 78-79)

Institutional capacity is the real enabler

Malawi's experience points to a broader principle for electoral authorities globally: the success of election technology depends on the institution around it.

The Post-Election Review notes that MEC was able to own and operate the technology directly, a result of effective training and knowledge transfer during deployment. Sustainable systems depend on this kind of institutional readiness: trained staff, documented processes, local operational knowledge, and contingency plans that work under pressure.

The review also identifies areas for continued improvement, including transparent technology governance, clearer legal and operational frameworks, comprehensive testing, hands-on training, proactive public communication and resilient arrangements for connectivity and power.

The review cautions: "Successful technology adoption depends not only on technical functionality but equally on stakeholder confidence in how technology is governed, managed and communicated." (Post-Election Review, p. 78)

Those recommendations are not an approval of technology per se. They are a roadmap for making it more reliable, understandable and trusted.

A lesson for future elections

The most useful takeaway from Malawi is not that any single device or platform is a solution in itself. It is that digital electoral systems are most effective when embedded in capable institutions and supported by rigorous planning.

Technology can improve efficiency, protect data integrity and enhance electoral service delivery. But its legitimacy ultimately rests on transparent governance, human capability and the confidence of the people it serves.

The review remains a consultative document reflecting stakeholder perspectives and observer evidence; it is not a final MEC reform program or an institutional endorsement by MEC, UNDP or any observer organization.

Chaos in DR Congo: Tech Glitches, Violence, and Poor Logistics Taint Elections

Voters had to wait for hours outside polling centers

The Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) pursuit of democratic consolidation faced a significant setback in the 2023 presidential elections. This high-stakes election, which had the potential to mark the second peaceful civilian-to-civilian transition since the country’s independence in 1960, wound up marred by violence, logistical challenges, and widespread malfunctioning of election technology provided by Miru Systems.

Election technology, central to the electoral proceedings, were expected to streamline and secure the vote. However, the CENCO-ECC observation mission’s report starkly highlighted that nearly 45.1% of polling stations faced technical issues with these devices. Reports from the media detailed numerous equipment breakdowns and technical glitches that caused substantial delays and voter confusion, directly impacting the credibility and smooth conduct of the polls.

With the essential act of voting compromised, election authorities were compelled to extend the electoral process by an additional day, attempting to mitigate the disenfranchisement of voters who faced disruptions. However, this extension was not enough to quell the rising discontent. Five presidential candidates have called into question the integrity of the elections, demanding that the process be nullified and redone.

A pre-election report by the Carter Center, issued weeks prior to the election day, had already flagged serious issues with the registration kits also provided by Miru Systems. Voter cards, necessary for casting ballots, were found to have smudged information due to faulty thermal printers included in the kits, which led to unreadable cards. Inefficient voter identification processes frequently result in protracted queues and can lead to disenfranchisement of voters.

Adding to the list of technological calamities, the durability and reliability of voter data on the newly issued ID cards were also in doubt. In some troubling instances, as reported by Africa News, personal information vanished from the voter ID cards, raising concerns over voter disenfranchisement and data security. These cards, which are vital for the identification of eligible voters, were also supplied by Miru Systems.

Despite the shortcomings, authorities have been resolute in their plan to announce preliminary results by December 31, with official results expected by January 10 at the latest. The inauguration of the new president is to follow ten days after the official results are made public.

Belying fraud allegations: Court upholds Angola polls, African Union lauds successful vote

In a deathblow to the 2022 aspirations of the Angola’s opposition, the Constitutional Court of Angola junked the electoral protest lodged by the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), declaring the case to be bereft of merit.

The decision upheld the win of the MPLA (People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola), which had dominated the African country’s political landscape for nearly five decades. It also handed President Joao Lourenco a second term.

UNITA leader Adalberto Costa Junior had cried foul over alleged discrepancies between the count of the National Electoral Commission (NEC) and his party's own tally. The poll body, on the other hand, had mightily defended the process to be fair and transparent.

UNITA claims that its parallel count shows it edging MPLA with the most razor-thin of margins — 49.5% vs 48.2%. A parallel count by civic movement Mudei indeed mirrors UNITA’s numbers.

In the face of the final and unappealable decision, UNITA and other opposition parties have called for peaceful demonstrations against so-called irregularities.

The biggest red flag seems to be the poll body’s failure to release results sheets from individual polling stations as they did in 2017, denying UNITAS the opportunity to compare it with parallel counts. Angola’s NEC only published aggregated results from 19 provinces. Exacerbating the bad optics is the fact that the CNE is largely MPLA-controlled, and that four out of the sixteen commissioners have repudiated the results.

The opposition also decries the lack of election observers, where only 1,300 were present to cover a country twice as big France, and questions why MPLA was given more airtime than others.

Yet even as the controversy hogged the headlines, analysts largely view the allegations as a fly in the ointment in an otherwise successful election. This, as election observers led by the influential African Union (AU), have cited the largely peaceful conduct of the polls.

AU Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat had lauded the exercise as an important milestone in the history of Angola, saying that "once again, the people of Angola have demonstrated their resolve for continuous search for democratic and participatory governance in their country.”

The chairperson went on to congratulate Angolans for turning out in droves to exercise their democratic right to choose their leaders, commend he smooth conduct of the polls, and praise the everyone involved for conducting themselves peacefully throughout the electoral process.

Mahamat has also urged Angolans to continue committing to peace and democracy, appealing for a peaceful and lawful resolution to all election disputes.

Kenya shuns past, holds first peaceful vote in years

International election observers heaved a sigh of relief as the Kenyan elections came to a close without violence in a stark departure from past polls that had been pockmarked by killings.

“On election day, voters exercised their right to vote in a general peaceful manner throughout the day,” lauded Ivan Stefance, head of the EU observation mission.

In a statement, Bruce Golding, former Prime Minister of Jamaica and the current chairman the Commonwealth Observer Group commended the people of Kenya for the “peaceful and orderly manner in which they exercised their right to vote on 9 August 2022.

“It is our hope that by bringing this electoral process to a successful conclusion, Kenya will serve as an inspiration for the Commonwealth and indeed, the rest of the world, that relevant lessons have been learned from the past, and that each successive election is an improvement on the previous one,” Golding said.

Although the matter is more nuanced, many observers are already singling out this year’s successful implementation of technology as a significant factor in keeping violence at bay.

“The mission commends the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) for the successful use of technology for voter registration voter identification and transmission of results. It has improved efficiency and increased the transparency for the election process in Kenya. At least those of us who were here in the last election can attest to that,” said Jakaya Kikwete, Head of the East African Community Observation Mission, and former President of Tanzania.

Dr. Ernest Bai Koromo, former president of the Republic of Sierra Leone noted the improvement in the overall voting exercise across the country. “Polling stations opened on time, voters were identified easily by digital kits and no major security incident was reported," he said.

“As a result of these changes to the Results Transmission System (RTS), the provisional presidential election results were publicly accessible on the IEBC portal. The Mission welcomes introducing these transparency measures to improve the integrity of the electoral process,” Koromo added.

The IEBC earned plaudits from the Commonwealth Observer Group for learning from past lessons, saying that “the Group notes that the IEBC applied a lessons-learned approach from the 2017 elections and adopted new software and hardware through the requisition of the KIEMS kit from a company called Smartmatic. It was noted that the IEBC undertook two simulation exercises of the KIEMS kits for the electronic transmission of results, the second of which our Advance Team was able to observe. We acknowledge these efforts, as the transparency they displayed contributed to building confidence in this key feature of the electoral process.”

The Kenyan election saw Deputy President William Samoei Ruto, 55, winning narrowly with 50.49 percent of the votes over his rival Raila Odinga, 77, who took 48.85 percent. Although Odinga is contesting his loss, political observers largely believe the election results to be credible.

Election watchdog ELOG (Elections Observation Group), a federation of more than a dozen NGOs, said that its parallel vote tabulation (PVT) estimates were consistent with IEBC’s official results.

“In light of our assessment of the Election Day processes and given that IEBC figures fall within the projected ranges, the PVT projections, therefore, corroborate the official results,” said the group’s chairperson Anne Ireri.

Kenyan citizens and election observers had been on tenterhooks during the lead up to the elections over fears that this year’s exercise would be a repeat of the bloody elections in 2007 where 1,200 people were killed and in the 2017 violence which left 24 people dead across the nation.

Elections in Angola, a new scandal for Indra

Picture by fullnews.info

Elections in Angola have always been marred by scandals and allegations of fraud. The ones held in 2017 were not the exception to the rule.

This time, Indra, a Spanish information technology and defense systems company, was at the center of the controversy. Not only because of the way it was chosen as election technology provider, but also because it accepted to implement a vote transmission and tallying system that apparently violated Angola’s legal framework.

Three months before the 2017 election, Angolan opposition parties UNITA, CASA-CE, PRS and FNLA denounced that the government hired the Spanish company Indra "to assist in manipulating election results to their advantage." According to a memo from UNITA, Indra agreed to design and implement a solution to transmit the preliminary results to a destination server different from the one established by Angola's Organic Law on General Elections.

Before the elections, Friends of Angola, a civil society organization based in Washington DC, had sent a request to the Spanish embassy asking for an investigation into the Spanish company Indra, in an effort to prevent this company from being hired again by the Angolan government.

The request letter, signed by Florindo Chivucute, Executive Director of Friends of Angola, points out that "a threat to democracy in Angola should be seen as a threat against all democratic nations." The letter based its concerns on a memo signed by UNITA and shared with the European Union Mission, where three disturbing facts were listed:

1. Bidding process. Indra was the only company that prepared a proposal and participated in the bid. According to the memo, it is likely that the Spanish company had access to privileged information and would have entered into over-invoicing agreements with the Angolan entities involved long before it had officially received the invitation. The official cost of its specific proposal for the two projects on the bid amounts to 1,433 million Euros.

2. Vote Transmission and Tallying. Angola's Organic Law on General Elections establishes two flows of information: one for the preliminary results and other for official results. The CNE requested Indra to develop a software application that would include only one flow of information, which generates a provisional clearance, which is then converted into a final ballot. Indra accepted this petition that violates the legal framework. Instead of transmitting the results from the base of the pyramid, Indra's solution allowed the polling stations’ results to be first sent to the top of the pyramid, the headquarters of the CNE in Luanda, to have the national results to determine the provincial results. According to the press, this request came directly from the MPLA, as they did not want municipal commissions to divulge or publish provisional results.

3. This action may help explain why in the elections held in 2008 and 2012, also organized with Indra's support, the CNE never published the election results by municipality and polling station, as it is mandated by the rules of transparency and good international election practices. Both elections were considered to be fraudulent, and as such were vehemently contested.

Six weeks after the 2017 election, the opposition still refused to accept the results, with discrepancies continuing to emerge in the tallying process of the National Electoral Commission (Comissão Nacional Eleitoral - CNE) and the opposition's own numbers. The opposition is not disputing the MPLA victory but rather the tabulation process that awarded the ruling party more votes.

Corruption scandals have surrounded Indra in other latitudes. One of its most recent scandals was revealed in March 2017, when the Brazilian government sanctioned one of Indra's subsidiaries, Indra Brasil Soluções e Serviços Tecnológicos Group. The company is now under administrative sanction, which prevents it from participating in public tenders.

Indra Brasil Soluções e Serviços Tecnológicos Group was called Politec, but changed its name a few years ago after the Brazilian authorities broke into its offices to investigate whether or not it had paid approximately $100 million in bribes to win bids.

Technological challenges lie ahead of Nigeria's 2019 election

In order for a country to move forward with progressive change that is beneficial for all its citizens, it must first establish a democratic process that is fair, secure and respected. This is particularly challenging for countries in transition, especially where a fair and open democracy is still a relatively novel concept in the shadow of previously unjust regimes.

A prime example of these circumstances is happening right now in the African country of Nigeria. Even though the federal elections were held just earlier this year, electing Muhammadu Buhari as the new President, the electoral commission and other governmental organizations are already looking ahead to the next election scheduled to take place in 2019.

Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Acting Chairperson Mrs. Amina Zakari has indicated that the commission “is ready to implement what is contemplated in the law.” More specifically, she says that Nigeria is technologically ready to move forward with e-voting as soon as the impediment of the law has been alleviated. The next major step required is to pass laws in Nigeria that allow for the widespread adoption of electronic voting technology for the 2019 elections.

To this end, INEC has partnered with the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) in an effort to deploy high technology in what should be a very robust election in four years’ time. The announcement of this collaboration comes ahead of an annual e-governance conference in mid-November, called eNigeria, where discussions will be held in regards to applying technological solutions in the 2019 general election, as well as to how to improve the electoral system in the nation as a whole.

It would not be prudent for Nigeria to hurl itself into full deployment of e-voting throughout its democratic process without first performing some due diligence. Indeed, while Nigeria did make use of biometric technology in its general election earlier this year, the fingerprint identification system was marred with problematic challenges. Once again, this further illustrates the incredible importance of two key issues.

First, the electoral commission of Nigeria must be careful in selecting the right providers for its e-voting equipment and infrastructure. This includes not only the hardware for voter authentication and digital ballots, possibly with the inclusion of a voter-verifiable paper trail, but also for the systems in place to manage these machines. A reputable vendor will have a proven track record in running elections of at least this size and magnitude.

Second, and this point is intimately intertwined with the first, the full election process must be open to scrutiny and testing through a robust series of audits. The audits must be in place through an impartial third party throughout the election, as well as both before and after the ballots are cast. The e-voting machines must be audited thoroughly. This way, any challenges or shortcomings will be suitably addressed before they become more widespread.

The integrity of the election results, and thus the public perception and acceptance of the election results, depends heavily on the reliability and security of the infrastructure used. Nigeria needs free, fair and open elections and the use of technology could pave the road. Nigeria is ready to adopt e-voting for its 2019 national elections and the pace is quickening with each passing day. Even before laws are passed to allow for e-voting on a national scale, INEC is prepared to move forward with agencies to develop the legal framework needed and to update its own internal processes.