Peru successfully completes e-voting trials

Image: ONPE Website

After several days of testing and showcasing the benefits of e-voting systems, the inhabitants of the Cañete municipality in Pacarán had the opportunity to experience an automated election for the first time: the July 7th municipal elections.

The Chief of the Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE), Mariano Cucho, was pleased by the fact that it took the electorate only 30 seconds to cast their votes, confirming that new technologies can be used efficiently during voting processes. He stated that “e-voting is really simple, which grants faster results”.

School N° 20174 was selected to carry out this first e-voting experience. A total of 1,361 voters in Pacarán were allowed to exercise their right to vote in the 3 polling stations set up at the institution.

Taking into account the importance of training both voters and polling station workers, voting simulations were conducted during the days leading to the actual election in order those exposed to the new technology, so that they could vote confidently and without hassles. There was an emphasis on explaining to the public the security mechanisms offered by e-voting.

On the other hand, polling station members had the chance to see the swiftness of e-voting in action, particularly during vote counting, and to certify how automation makes their work easier by subtracting human error from the process. 

This experience proves one more how e-voting keeps gaining strength as the best option to safeguard and improve democracy. The Peruvian electoral authorities now face the great challenge of extending this successful trial experience in Pacarán to other territories, until elections are automated in the entire Inca nation.

Kenya: a poor implementation of voting technology

Kenya longs for peace. Photograph: Phil Moore/AFP/Getty Images

On March 4th, Kenya, East Africa's largest economist held its first general elections since the new constitution was approved in a national referendum in 2010. As part of this deep legal transformation, robust electoral reforms were introduced to set the new grounds for credible, and legitimate elections. 

Kenya has been under intense scrutiny by national and international organizations since the 2007, when the losing candidate in the presidential elections, Raila Amollo Odinga, refused to concede defeat alleging a massive fraud had been conducted. His supported rioted the streets and ethnic violence erupted. More than 1,200 killed and hundreds were displaced. The political, social and economic consequences of such episodes are still fresh in the memory of all Kenyans.

To avoid the recurrence of a similar tragedy, and conduct peaceful and more transparent elections, Kenya embarked on a project to modernize its voting system by automating certain phases of the election cycle. Biometric technology was introduced to increase accuracy of the voter roll and minimize the impact of vote impersonation. Also, an electronic transmission of results was implemented to speed up the result consolidation and publication process. 

Unfortunately, the newly formed Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) came short of accomplishing their noble goals. Both automation processes were poorly managed, causing a cumbersome voting experience for most voters, and delaying result publication for almost an entire week.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga is again playing a role that is becoming familiar to him, claiming fraud. He laments that the billions spent in technology for voter identification and vote tallying claiming rendered poor results. "Two days after the vote, the electronic tallying process was discarded and counting began afresh, manually. That too turned out to be flawed exercise in which, among other things, there was massive tampering with the IEBC voter register" he stated. 

Although it is early for international observers to conclude that a massive fraud was carried out, they have acknowledged the technical problems and delays. The biometric platform, developed by a partnership between the Government of Canada and a subcontractor, Morpho Canda Inc, reported numerous failures causing voters to wait in line for hours before casting a vote.

Also, the system in charge of the transmission of results and processing the data broke down forcing a manual count of the votes. The services used to provide the tallying and result publishing services were provided by different companies. 

Utilizing an mobile App designed by IFES and installed on cell phones distributed to each polling stations, authorities were supposed to use Safaricom (a leading mobile network operator in Kenya) telecommunication company) SIM cards to send results transmitted via a Virtual Private Network  (VPN). Servers in consolidation centers, managed by Next Technologies, were supposed to process results and upload them to a Google hosted website. 

Acknowledging all difficulties experienced by voters to cast a vote, and knowing results, James Oswago, Chief executive of Kenya's IEBC, stated "none of those reasons is malevolent, none of those reasons was intended to keep you here needlessly. We tried our best." 

In the light of such complex political landscape, and with the 2007 chaos fresh in everyone's memory, we hope the technical glitches do not assume political dimensions.

Latin America has a central role in the electoral year 2013

Photo: Eneas

2012 was a very exciting year for those who follow the world’s electoral affairs. Venezuela, Brazil, and the US were some of the most remarked elections, especially with the implementation of biometric authentication in the first two countries’ polling stations. With the advent of 2013, the electoral calendar did not come to a stop: in Latin America alone, Ecuador, Honduras, Paraguay and Chile are stepping into the spotlight this year, and other countries like Colombia and Peru are getting ready to modernize its electoral platform for next year.

Ecuador inaugurated the Latin American electoral calendar with Rafael Correa’s victory at the February 17 presidential election. In order to offer faster results in this occasion, the country adopted a technology platform for the rapid counting of votes with the support of the Dominican Republic. It is worth noting that Ecuador is not new to the use of electoral technology, as it employed voting machines for a small election last year.

Meanwhile, Paraguay has been preparing for the election of a new president after Fernando Lugo was impeached in June last year. This will take place on April 21, amid fears that Mr. Lugo’s impeachment was a disguised coup d’état planned by the right-wing Colorado party to establish a new dictatorship after its 61-year rule came to an end with Lugo’s ascent to power in 2008.

Meanwhile, elections in Honduras will become the arena for the first testing and eventual gradual implementation of e-voting. This is fueled by the nightmare that took place during the November 2012 elections, where people had to wait more than two weeks for the final results. The political class itself called for the modernization of its electoral platform after this fiasco.

Chile will hold presidential elections on November 17. This will be an event worth watching closely because it may set the final precedent for the modernization of this country’s electoral platform. Chileans have been demanding the implementation of e-voting after the alarmingly high abstention rate that marked last year’s elections. Local authorities have remained stubborn against automation, arguing that manual voting is a cultural legacy, but the increased voter absenteeism signals otherwise. If the trend continues, it might be time for the government of Chile to finally listen to the citizens and set forth on the path to automation.

Meanwhile, other countries are gearing up for their future elections: Colombia keeps pushing for the implementation of e-voting for its 2014 presidential election, while Peru is already carrying out e-voting drills in spite of it not having formally adopted electoral technology yet.

After the success of the Venezuelan and Brazilian elections with electoral technology in 2012, we are expecting to see new Latin American countries add up to the roster of nations that have made the choice to modernize its electoral platforms. 2013 is already showing us the progress these nations are making.