Alleged poll mess sparks Myanmar putsch

Myanmar’s precarious democracy again teeters on the edge of dictatorship after the military seized power and detained the country’s top civilian leader State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi.

Suu Kyi was arrested along with several other senior figures from the ruling party following an early morning coup on Monday. The move came after weeks of threatening rhetoric from the military which has vowed to “take action” over alleged irregularities in a November election swept by Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD).

Suu Kyi, who made international headlines as political prisoner and iconic leader of Myanmar’s democracy movement, came into power after a 2015 landslide election win. In November, the NLD won 83% of available seats, in what was widely regarded as a vote of confidence on the country’s fledgling democratic government.

Although her international star dimmed after her handling of the Rohingya refugee crisis in 2017, she remains hugely popular at home.

Evidence of fraud is scant, but it has not stopped the military from savagely attacking the November 2021, alleging discrepancies such as duplicated names on voting lists in many districts. The military had also been critical of the Union Election Commission (UEC) which has declared the elections were "done fairly and free," and that it could not have been "more transparent."

The UEC had said that the result was final and there would "not be an election re-run". The army had also alleged that early voting showed "errors of neglect" in voter lists and a "widespread violation of laws and procedures".

Ironically enough, the military itself was the architect of Myanmar’s 2008 constitution and democracy. Then, it did not see fit to completely abdicate power to civilian authority, so they instituted a permanent role for itself in the political system. Under Myanmar law, the military gets an unelected quota of 25% of parliamentary seats.

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.

Lessons from the EVOTE 2014 International Conference

Issues related to the administration of a local, regional or national election may sound like they would only be the concern of the locality, region or country where the election is being held, but this is never quite the case. No part of the world exists in true isolation and great lessons can be learned through the collaboration of great minds around the globe.

And it is with this kind of philosophy and mission that EVOTE2014 was hosted at Castle Hofen in Lochau / Bregenz, Austria. The sixth international conference was held from October 28 to October 31, 2014 and it was attended by some 100 representatives from 33 countries from five different continents. Several topics related to electronic voting technology were discussed and presented at the conference.

It was noted, for instance, that many of the major advances and expansions in e-voting technology have come from developing countries, particularly in Latin America, rather than from more established democracies where more “traditional” manual elections have a stronger foothold. Estonia is widely viewed as a leader in pushing i-voting technology forward, along with developments in countries like Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina and Ecuador. 

Of particular interest at the EVOTE2014 conference was the submission by Julia Pomares, Director of Political Institutions at the Center for the Implementation of Public Policies Promoting Equity and Growth (CIPPEC), in collaboration with Guillermo Lopez Mirau, Teresa Shepherd and California Institute of Technology's R. Michael Alvarez. Winner of the Best Paper Award at the EVOTE 2014 conference, the paper focuses on the experience of Salta district in Argentina where e-voting was rolled out to the entire electorate in 2013.

A big lesson from that election is that it is of critical importance that the electorate has confidence in integrity of the election process and supports e-voting technology. If the public does not support the implementation of e-voting technology or it does not trust how such technology is being used, then further strides in advancing and improving electronic voting technology will stall or be hindered. 

Positive perception of the voting process and the belief that the voting system is easy to use are of great importance. Furthermore, people who have more positive views of technology in daily life are generally more positive about how e-voting is changing how elections are run around the world. 

The final programme for EVOTE2014 followed the overall conference theme of verifying the vote. While electronic voting technology can be used very successfully in quickly and efficiently counting the votes, in addition to voting machines being used for auditable ballot submissions, these votes must also be suitably verified in order to maintain the privacy, confidentiality and integrity of the final tallied results. 

At EVOTE2014, a workshop was held covering 10 pillars of end-to-end online voting verifiability, for example, while another session discussed how verifiable Internet voting works in Estonia. Other sessions included a talk by Vanessa Teague from the University of Melbourne on Trust and Verifiability in Australian E-voting, a session hosted by Rajeev Gore and Thomas Meumann on verified vote-counting, and a panel discussion on public attitudes toward Internet voting in Greece, particularly on the issue of verifiable e-voting. 

While each region, each nation and each service provider will continue to make their own decisions in regards to how e-voting and i-voting are best administered, international conferences like EVOTE2014 provide the perfect platform for these industry leaders to meet, collaborate and discuss the pertinent issues.

The importance of better election administration

Source: Google Images

With the United States preparing for its midterm elections later on in 2014, special attention needs to be paid to improving the overall election administration in many of the counties across America. While it is certainly important to discuss the pertinent issues of the day when it comes to public and foreign policy, healthcare, education and other vital topics, the election process itself is something that must also be addressed.

Indeed, following the horrendously long lineups to vote in the 2012 Presidential election, the re-elected Barack Obama thanked “every American who participated,” but he also said that “we have to fix that” in relation to the very long lines. The democratic process needs to be expedited and it needs to be easier for citizens to cast their ballots, because long lineups and unnecessarily complicated processes can act as a significant barrier to entry. When it is difficult to vote, some citizens may simply opt out of voting altogether.

There are many challenges ahead for election administration in the United States. Scandals have plagued the electoral process, from the “butterfly ballot” scandal in 2000 to problems with lost votes, lack of availability of online voting information, problems with voter turnout, and accuracy and reliability of the posted results.

In particular, one problem that keeps coming up with American elections surrounds the issue of provisional ballots. These are ballots issued when there are questions related to the eligibility of a given voter. This could be because of inaccurate voter roll records such that the ID provided does not match what election administrators have on file. It may also relate to the voter not appearing on the electoral roll at all or the possibility that the voter's ballot has already been recorded.

Ideally, the number of provisional ballots should be kept to a minimum, because the administration of the election should be such that the records are completely accurate and up-to-date. There should be minimal conflict. However, this has been an issue in many cities and counties across the United States, as recorded on Election Day in 2012.

For example, an incredible 37 percent of the votes cast in Maricopa County in Arizona, home to Phoenix, were provisional ballots. This could indicate structural problems at the polling sites. Similarly, Denver, Colorado saw the highest rate of absentee ballots rejected in the state. Some say these were based on false claims of voter fraud, particularly against Latino citizens. In Duval and Hillsborough counties in Florida, a large number of provisional ballots were cast and many voters were removed from electoral rolls. A similar problem, possibly related to race, was observed in Pasquotank County in North Carolina, where students at a historically black university saw a high number of absentee ballots rejected.

All of these types of problems are rooted in the administration of the election and they are indicative of an electoral system that needs help. These issues can be addressed through the use of technology and greater automation, but the administration must first recognize the magnitude of these problems and work toward suitable solutions. Yes, you have to fix that.