Poorly implemented e-voting systems should not deter advancement

A couple is walking down the street, looking for a place to have dinner. They spot a rather dodgy-looking Japanese restaurant that happens to have a terrific special on sushi. Despite some hesitation, the couple decides to eat there. The food isn't good. The service isn't good. And one of them gets horribly sick afterwards. Given this experience, would it be fair for this couple to swear off of sushi entirely for the rest of their lives? Or was this experience only indicative of the poor quality of fish and food handling at this specific restaurant?

You might be wondering why a hypothetical story about a man and a woman eating dinner at a Japanese restaurant is appearing on a blog that discusses electronic voting technologies and innovations around the world. It is because many “experts” and “analysts” are just as quick to jump to these sorts of conclusions in regards to e-voting and i-voting technology based on isolated incidents. A negative e-voting experience in one jurisdiction should not lead to the absolute dismissal of e-voting in its entirety.

As with any developing or even established technologies, e-voting is certainly not without its challenges. Issues have arisen in Ireland and Canada, for instance. In the instance of Brockton, Ontario in Canada, there have been reports of voter fraud. However, many of these problems could have been prevented and mitigated if the proper precautionary steps were taken beforehand. And even if they were not, these incidents can serve as lessons for the future implementation of e-voting and i-voting technology in other elections around the globe.

There are many factors that come into play when implementing an e-voting system and governments are advised to follow the E-Voting Readiness Index proposed by Robert Krimmer and Ronald Schuster of the Competence Center for E-voting and Participation in Vienna, Austria. There need to be systems and infrastructure in place to best handle a suitable and reliable e-voting dynamic as part of a major election.

Indeed, a robust and properly supported e-voting infrastructure is ultimately more reliable and more secure than its analog counterparts. However, an e-voting system that has not been properly audited throughout the process and one where vendors have not been suitably vetted and tested can lead to many problems. Governments should only work with reputable vendors with proven track records, ones that have clearly demonstrated their ability to run secure, reliable, accurate and transparent elections elsewhere.

To uphold the integrity of the democratic process, several criteria for choosing e-voting technology and e-voting vendors must be followed. A wise and informed decision must be made based on accessibility and transparency, for instance, in addition to cost-efficiency and accuracy. In an effort to stay within budget, some jurisdictions may opt for less-tested vendors and solutions, but this can prove to be more costly in the long run and it can result in errors and issues. A proven vendor with a proven solution can help to instil greater confidence in e-voting among the voting population and this can help to encourage further development in improving the system.

It begins with the administration and ensuring that the electoral process itself is a debate that is suitably addressed among government officials. The decision cannot and should not be taken lightly. And this is why conferences like EVOTE 2014 in Austria are so valuable, as it facilitates the open discussion among international governments regarding how best to implement what electronic voting technology in their own elections. By leveraging their combined expertise, fewer problems will be experienced by all and the number of poorly implemented e-voting systems will fall to the wayside in favor of more robust, reliable and secure technologies.

Europe joins the new wave of election automation

Image: Gozo News

2014 is proving to be an interesting year for modern democracies as more nations -seeking to provide greater transparency and efficiency to their elections- take firm steps to modernize their electoral systems.

Earlier this year, Ecuador implemented an electronic voting pilot during its recent elections. India began attaching printers to their machines to make voting in their machines more transparent. Costa Rica, Panama, Pakistan and Slovakia also made important progress to ensure inclusion and build electoral confidence via election automation.

In Europe, despite some setbacks during the last decade in Ireland, the Netherlands and Germany, the scenario has changed radically and electoral automation is regaining strength.

The European Union Parliamentary elections to being held this weekend will be an excellent opportunity for nations to continue to developing e-voting platforms already in place, or to show its advantages over the outdated and unreliable manual systems in electronic voting pilots.

Estonia is leading the way with an I-voting system that has already yielded excellent results in six national elections. I-voting is optional, as voters can head to poll stations and use the traditional paper and pencil. Since its inception in 2005, casting a ballot online has been gaining popularity in Estonia.

Meanwhile, in Belgium, three elections will take place at the same time: Federal, Regional and European parliamentary authorities are to be chosen. Smartmatic technology (including more than 17,400 voting machines) will be used in polling stations across 153 communes in the Flanders (308 municipalities) and Brussels (19 municipalities) regions. Over 1,000 polling stations in Brussels and Wallonia will be using technology by Jites and Digivote. 

There’s also Switzerland, with its system of electronic voting, known as vote électronique, which allows the electorate to participate in elections and referendums on the Internet without having to go to a polling station.

Bulgaria will have the opportunity to test the benefits of a verifiable voting system.

In Bulgaria, the National Electoral Commission of this country has decided to implement a fully automated system: Citizens of Sofia and three other Bulgarian cities will have the option to use the voting technology platform, which includes touchscreen voting machines, software applications and related services.

Scytl fails again in Ecuador

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Last year, in 2013, Ecuador awarded Spanish-based Scytl a $7.8 million contract to automate tallying, processing and publishing results for provinces with manual voting – some 160,000 polling station reports.

In these presidential elections, the incumbent, Rafael Correa won by such a big margin (34%) that the CNE could rely on quick counts to provide partial results.

His supporters celebrated victory as soon as one hour after the polls closed. As a result, the local press completely overlooked the fact that Scytl’s data processing actually took weeks.

In the 2014 elections that have just taken place in Ecuador, the story is different. The same company, the same problem, but it is a sectional election with eleven million voters selecting thousands of candidates. Margins are narrow and quick counts and exit polls are not enough.

Since the polls on February 23, authorities have been postponing announcing the results. A few days ago, with only 75% of results processed, they asked for more time.

Osman Loraiza, a representative from Scytl, acknowledged the failure of their system in Ecuador. However, their website is still regarding their participation as a success. It remains to be seen whether the press will overlook the failure this time.  

The CNE has already announced it will sanction Scytl. Authorities will wait until this crisis is finished to decide how to proceed. 

Electoral authorities from Ecuador are now left with the herculean task of completing the counting, announcing results and convincing public opinion that those are a true expression of the popular vote.

Fortunately, it is not all bad news for the election technology industry. On election day, and only 70 minutes after polls closed, results were available in Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas. The e-voting technology deployed by Smartmatic yielded excellent results. Also, in Azuay, were the CNE automated the counting of votes using Magic Software Argentina (MSA) technology, results were also published that same night.  

Philippine election set e-voting example for Southeast Asia

Source: Google Images

In 2013, the popularity of e-voting technology continued to expand across all corners of the globe, including notable countries as India and The Philippines. In fact, the election held last May in the latter could serve as a great example for e-voting in other Southeast Asian countries.

The Philippines have received kudos from FutureGov, an online and print publication that looks for trends in relation to e-commerce, information technology and the governmental initiatives that support their development. Publisher James Smith commended the Filipino community for “putting technology to new and better use.”

This remark was related to the recent midterm elections held in May 2013 where the Philippines employed an automated e-voting platform to streamline and secure the electoral process. Optical scan machines were used to count the votes and canvass the results, working far faster than the manual method. The increased speed also meant that results could be reported sooner and with greater accuracy, giving the whole electoral process more transparency and validity.

Taking the Philippines as a case in point of how to successfully adopt and implement an automated voting technology, other countries in Southeast Asia should evaluate the Philippine example to improve their own electoral methods and fortify their Democracies.

The current electoral process in Malaysia appears very archaic by comparison. In addition to using manual voting with paper ballots that are then folded and inserted into a ballot box with a ruler, people who have voted are marked with indelible ink on their left forefinger to prevent them from casting a second ballot at another voting booth. If a biometric authentication system was employed to check the voter’s identity against a central database before he/she casts his/her ballot, the indelible ink mark would no longer be required. Electronic ballots could also simplify the selection of multiple candidates and offer far greater security and secrecy than a folded paper ballot in a ballot box.

Meanwhile in Indonesia, the presidential election is scheduled to take place around the middle of July 2014. For this event, the government and electoral officials are working toward an implementation of a new e-voting system. E-voting had been used previously in certain districts, like Denspasar (Bali) and Yogyakarta (Java), but this would represent the first time that such a system would see widespread usage throughout the country.

Marzan Aziz Iskander, head of the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT), has said that the successful use of e-voting would require the full introduction of e-KTP. These are the electronic identity cards that would have to be issued to every eligible voter. Then, additional infrastructure is also needed, like the ballot scanners and other equipment. To ease their way toward e-voting, Indonesian officials are considering the electronic counting of ballots first. This would at least expedite vote counting and reduce certain costs in the interim.

By learning from and following the example set by the Philippine election, Indonesia, Malaysia and other countries can be better prepared to face some of the challenges that may arise with the implementation of electronic voting systems.