2024: A Record-Setting Year in Democracy and Technology

In a watershed moment for democracy, the year 2024 is set to witness an unprecedented scale of electoral participation, with at least 64 countries—including all 27 member states of the European Union—poised to conduct national elections.

This democratic spectacle is projected to engage approximately 49% of the global population, highlighting the sheer magnitude of the citizenry that will exercise their voting rights.

Of particular note, the most populous nations on the planet—India, the United States, Indonesia, Pakistan, Russia, and Mexico—are scheduled to hold pivotal elections that could shape the geopolitical landscape for the foreseeable future.

Technology, too, is slated to leave an indelible impact, as close to half of the electorate will utilize electronic voting machines to cast their ballots, signifying a significant inclusion of modern technology in the democratic process.

The United States commands the spotlight with its comprehensive suite of elections slated for November 5. The American populace will determine their next president while simultaneously voting for the entirety of the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate. The presidential election is particularly charged with echoes of 2020, as incumbent Democrat Joe Biden is anticipated to once again stand against Republican Donald Trump in what can be seen as a sequential political duel.

India, the world’s most populated country, will hold elections for the Lok Sabha, known as the House of the People. With a vast population of 1.44 billion, a substantial portion of which comprises eligible voters, India's the largest democracy in the world. The procedural undertaking of such an event is colossal, necessitating an extensive deployment of electronic voting machines to ensure a smooth and efficient voting process.

With the shifting winds of political power, the outcomes of these elections carry profound implications for international relations, especially in regions marred by conflict, such as Gaza and Ukraine.

The year 2024 will, therefore, not only be remembered for the historic voter turnout but also for the impact of these elections on the unfolding of global events and the balance of power that influences them.

270 poll workers dead: The high cost of Indonesia’s manual vote counting

Counting votes by hand has always been backbreaking work. But for some poll workers in Indonesia, it proved to be deadly as well. Some 270 election workers have passed away from exhaustion, under pressure to finish the counting two weeks after the country’s general elections. 

Arief Priyo Susanto, spokesman of Indonesia’s General Elections Commission (KPU), said that most deaths were due to fatigue-related illnesses caused by long hours of work counting of ballot papers by hand. In addition to the fatalities, some 1,878 other staff had fallen ill.

Although the polls were generally peaceful, the counting is far from over. Authorities do not expect to conclude vote counting and officially announce winners until May 22.

The tragedy underscores the even uglier side of manual elections and should jolt election managers everywhere to rethink their counting systems. What makes this even more tragic is that modern voting technology already exists that could spare poll workers from this ordeal. 

The poll workers were up against something daunting --- for the first time in Indonesia’s history, authorities combined presidential, parliamentary and regional elections in one day. This meant that the 6 million poll workers had to prepare 810,000 polling stations to receive 193 million eligible voters. Roughly 245,000 candidates were vying for more than 20,000 national and local legislative seats. 

In addition to the sheer size of the election, the geography further complicated logistics. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising some 18,000 islands across an area of 1.9 million square kilometers. 

According to the Lowy Institute, an Australian think-tank, these were "one of the most complicated single-day elections in global history."

As two other Asian countries have shown, technology has the power to improve election administration. in Indonesia. 

India, which has been automating vote counting since 2004, is now using some 1.2 million electronic voting machines to make their elections better. For this year’s Lok Sabha election, 10 million election officials are conducting the largest democratic elections in the world. 840 eligible voters are scheduled to participate in a voting exercise that will span throughout five weeks. Once voting is done, votes will be electronically counted, consolidated and announced. Though there is still room for improvement, India has managed to make voting more accessible and transparent relying on technology. 

The Philippines will head to the polls on May 13 to hold midterm elections. This archipelago, which is a neighbor of Indonesia, has automated vote counting since 2010 with impressive results. Some 90,000 optical scanners are used to digitize and count the votes of some 63 million voters. Since the Philippines began automating vote counting, poll workers have benefited from simplified processes and reduced hours of operation. Also, by minimizing the role poll workers play on election day, they have become less vulnerable to bribing and coercion. 

The tragedy has thrown Indonesia’s General Elections Commission in the spotlight. It must take decisive measures to prevent another tragedy of this magnitude from ever happening again. Better processes, better organization, and better technology have become urgent imperatives.

India and the Philippines show this can be done.

India looks at E-governance to improve education

In its bid to improve overall performance of learning institutions, the Indian government has outfitted 1,200 central schools in New Delhi with e-governance technology. 

Through this program, activities of both the students and the teachers will be monitored to increase productivity and achieve a more efficient administration. Officials of the schools are optimistic that the e-governance program can help improve performance of students, teachers, and school administrators.

Already, some educators are reporting such expected improvements. Suresh Singh, a principal in Kendriya Vidyalaya in South Delhi, has credited the adoption of the e-governance system with minimizing the drudgery of administration allowing him to teach more.

“Now I am more of a teacher,” Singh says, “less of an administrator”. Mathematics teacher Alka Sharma from Ahlcon International School in East Delhi shares the same optimism. Digital intervention lessens administrative burden on teaching staff, enabling them to focus more on educating than doing paper work.

E-governance has clearly brought an effective tool to teachers, who are also looking at leveraging technology to improve student engagement through customized tutorials, better pedagogy, which in turn, develops an ideal teaching-learning atmosphere.

The government tapped MGRM Net Ltd, an IT company to implement the project. MGRM’s senior vice-president Partha Mohanty said his company seeks to bring the e-governance program to private and government schools as both require an education system that observes “transparency, accountability, improved efficiency and universal access to information”.

For this specific purpose, the e-governance is the solution he believes will bring a remarkable difference. Numerous domestic and international studies have revealed quality issues with India’s education sector, making it the target of a reform initiative.

The Union Human Resource Development Ministry has also considered the same e-Government technology through its “shaala darpan” system, an ICT program that provides mobile access to parents of students of government and government-aided schools.

With this technology, parents can view updates on their child’s progress. Observers are optimistic that integrating “shaala darpan” with e-governance technology would bring about outstanding results in terms of student engagement, assessment and gap analysis, and even school infrastructure.

The problems with e-mail voting

Most discussions surrounding how elections can and should be run generally focus on the core group of people who will make the trip to a polling place in order to cast their ballot. This makes a lot of sense, since the vast majority of voters in elections all around the world will place their vote in this manner, whether it is through a manual system or with electronic voting.

A smaller demographic would be made up of absentee ballots. These may be people who live in remote or rural areas and they cannot or wish not to make the journey to the closest polling station, which could be a considerable distance away. And then there is the other cohort of voters who are not physically present in the region or country itself, but these expatriates and citizens working abroad have just as much of a right to have their voice heard (though an official vote) as those who are physically present.

To address this growing demographic, the Election Commission in India has submitted its recommendations to the country's Supreme Court to facilitate remote voting by Non-Resident Indians (NRIs). While there are considerations for casting a ballot through proxies or through electronic voting machines, another proposal calls for email-based ballots that the NRIs can send directly to the Election Commission. 

From a convenience standpoint, this may appear to be a sound proposal. Under an existing ordinance, non-residents could vote, but they would still need to register and come back to a local polling station. However, many NRIs “cannot afford to travel, or they only come once in many years,” according to petitioner Dr. Shamsheer Vayalil. Email can provide near instant communication and it is already a technology familiar with the grand majority of users globally. 

However, email-based voting presents multiple problems that may be difficult to overcome. First, emails inherently carry a significant security risk, as the messages can be intercepted and mailboxes can be hacked. Second, the identity of the voter cannot be suitably verified as there are no existing measures to guarantee the correct person is casting the vote. The email account can be compromised and even if it isn't, the email address can be easily spoofed by those wishing to commit election fraud. Third, it can be difficult to maintain the level of privacy and confidentiality required of an official ballot. Fourth, as the ballot is sent directly by the voter himself or herself, the sanctity of the secret ballot is compromised without further measures being taken to protect it.

Voting by email has its merits, but these challenges are too overwhelming to make the system viable for most intents and purposes. There are suitable alternatives that present their own set of challenges. The 2014 Brazilian general election saw the ambitious deployment of over 900 voting machines to nearly 100 countries around the world. The electoral court oversaw the process of preparing, sealing, shipping and deploying these electronic voting machines. A similar strategy was utilized by the Philippines with precinct count optical scan machines in major international locations. 

The cost and logistics involved with deploying electronic voting machines globally can be significant and this is another reason why turning to an existing infrastructure, like the Internet, must be explored. To this end, while email-based voting might not be the best idea, it may be possible to use far more secure protocols that are specifically designed for the purpose of casting, recording, and securely transmitting a ballot over the web to the appropriate officials. A vote through a secure website or with a secure application may work far better, so long as the protocols are in place to verify the identity of the voter, maintain the secrecy of the ballot, and securely transmit that information.

None of the above: Exercising the right to reject

Image: Tribune.com.pk

The right to choose leaders is one of the most cherished freedoms in a democracy.  

A voter casts his vote for the candidate he wants and hopes for the best. But what is a voter to do if none of the candidates catches his fancy? Does the right to suffrage include the right to reject too? 

The issue has, in fact, attracted considerable attention recently. In India, the Supreme Court has come out with a landmark ruling granting voters the right to reject. The High Court has ordered the Election Commission to provide a “None Of The Above” (NOTA) button on the e-voting  machine, commenting that negative voting would help cleanse the political system in the country.

In the decision, the high court said that "Democracy is all about choices and voters will be empowered by this right of negative voting." 

It added that such a right to reject would lead to a “systemic change in polls and political parties will be forced to project clean candidates".

Aside from India, negative voting is also a fixture in the election systems of Greece, the US State of Nevada, Ukraine, Spain and Colombia.  Russia experimented with negative voting but abolished such in 2006. 

Pakistan also had a None of the Above option in the ballot until the government  dropped it in 2013, saying that elections were meant to "elect and not reject".

Just how significant is this ruling giving voters the right to reject? Many analysts say that such a mechanism puts political parties on notice that voters would no longer put up with mediocre candidates. Voters hitherto resigned to choosing the “least evil” among the lot could suddenly find themselves with the power to reject.  

Yet advocates are apprehensive about the development noting that the right to reject would only be truly efficacious if it materially affects the outcome of elections. They ask, for instance, about the effect of NOTA getting the most number of votes. Will it result in forcing the government to conduct other elections with better candidates? 

Some note with concern that while India e-voting machines will now feature the NOTA button, the candidate who gets the second most number of votes will still be declared winner, rendering the whole effort moot.

Sri Lanka waits for electoral automation

Photo: S Baker

The advantages of e-voting do not go unnoticed by neighbors of countries that have successfully automated their electoral system. One example of this is Sri Lanka, which has been aware of the advantages brought by the implementation of voting technology in India, and now expects to adopt electronic voting as well.

India is one of the leading countries in the use of electoral technology. For almost two decades, it has been showing the world that a country with more than a billion people, and with extreme conditions for its electorate, can carry out elections with utmost reliability and speed. Moreover, the nation is planning to add printed vote receipts to enhance the auditability of its democratic processes. The use of electoral technology has proven to foster citizen participation in younger crowds, as they are coming up with new ways to incorporate it into their lives.

With the adoption of electoral technology, India set an example that was quickly followed by other countries, such as Nepal. Since the positive experience with e-voting is spreading throughout Asia, Therefore, it is not surprising at all that India’s neighbor, Sri Lanka, is now conducting campaigns advocating for the incorporation of e-voting into its electoral system. Since 2010, the Water Supply and Drainage Minister of the country, Dinesh Gunawardene, has been announcing that the government is taking steps toward the automation of the electoral system. He states that the central government acknowledges how easy it is to vote using machines and how e-voting “eradicates corruption and reduces delays in releasing results.” The cost-effectiveness of electoral automation has also been highlighted. However, implementation has taken longer than estimated, and the people are growing restless.

There are already groups on Facebook and Twitter accounts championing vote automation for Sri Lanka. The country is now just waiting for voting machines to be borrowed from India to conduct a demonstration and make the final decision, as it cannot subsist anymore on the unbearably long ballot papers that have been produced in recent elections. 

Sri Lankans are more than prepared to adopt e-voting now because they have been witness to its benefits for years. The country already has the political will and the enthusiasm of the citizenry to back automation, so the only thing missing is for the nation to take the final step. This way, Sri Lanka will enter the elite of countries where democracy is easier and more reliable, and where the will of the people is entirely reflected on their electoral results. We are hoping that that final leap is made very soon.

India, the natural migration towards paper trail voting machines

In May 2004, the world’s largest democracy conducted its first automated national elections using approximately one million Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) to allow 671 million voters express their preference. This event was the culmination of a long and progressive adoption process that started in 1977.

The Direct-Recording Electronic Voting Machines used, were developed by a public sector company, the Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), with the purpose of bringing higher levels of transparency and accuracy to elections.

In spite of the considerable benefits automation brought forth to this nation, since February 2010, the Indian Electoral Commission has been receiving complaints from different activists groups, political parties, and researchers who challenge the system’s precarious security features. Their main argument has been the EVMs’ vulnerability to tampering at stages such as: the moment the software that runs them is burned onto their chips, while the machines are stored before an election, and during the period between the voting and the tallying.

These same detractors of the technology used in India consider that, by providing a Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT), the problem could be solved. The VVPAT represents a simple mechanism that allows contrasting the electronic results with the manual counts of the paper trail. Any candidate, in the event of a suspicion of tampering, could request a recount on the basis of the paper records. One such system was developed by the world leader in electronic voting Smartmatic and has been used, with great results, in Venezuela and other countries since the year 2004. In fact, Venezuela’s 2004 presidential recall referendum constituted the first election in the world in which a printed receipt was produced by the machine with each vote.

To comply with the growing request for transparency, Indian electoral authorities demanded their two EVMs suppliers, government-run Bharat Electronics Ltd and Electronics Corp. of India Ltd, to adapt the voting machines and include the printing of a paper record. The printed receipt will allow voters to verify that their vote was cast correctly, to detect possible election fraud or malfunction, and to provide a means to audit the stored electronic results.

In the last few months, field tests have already been conducted with unsatisfactory results. According to analysts and authorities, approximately one in 20 votes polled in Delhi, one of the four places where the pilot poll was conducted, did not have a corresponding paper ballot. Such a high level of discrepancies has prompted authorities to delay the implementation of EVM with VVPAT in real elections until more satisfactory results are achieved in the field tests.

India, together with Brazil and the United States, were pioneers in the adoption of voting technology. With a voting population of 714 million, representing 23% of the entire voting population of the world, India needs to migrate towards VVPAT to keep up with the citizens’ demands.

Jennifer McCoy Discusses E-voting

Jennifer McCoy, director of the Carter Center's Americas Program, spoke about Colombia's recent decision to implement e-voting for the Colombian digital magazine Razón Pública. This is what she had to say (in Spanish):

(If you cannot see the embedded video, you can find it here.)

Here is a translation of her declaration:

"When a society decides to change its voting system, it is important that there is a lot of consultation with political parties, and that there is transparency. Transparency is the most important thing here. Educating and informing voters is also very important, so that they understand the new systems and these can be implemented effectively.

However, if there is no transparency and no information, there can be problems of lack of understanding, suspicion, etc.

Estonia has already adopted an Internet-based voting system. It is interesting to find that there actually are developing countries that have adopted automated voting systems. India, for example, and Brazil, where voting has been almost completely automated. Bolivia has no e-voting, but biometric identification of its citizens was implemented there last year.

In short, it is possible for developing countries to use high-tech voting systems."