E-voting will attest its value again in 2013

Image: Everystockphoto

Guiding the world through the path of automation is no easy task. Some countries have yet to learn some hard lessons with the use of archaic manual methods. In order for the nations to finally modernize their electoral systems, they need proof that e-voting is really the way to go. Last year we saw some impressive models of the effectiveness of voting technology —and the ineptitude of manual voting—, which should be enough to convince anybody of the need for electoral automation. However, it doesn’t stop there. Here are some of the aspects where e-voting will confirm its worth once again in 2013.

Reliability

Elections like the ones we saw last year in Russia, Ghana and Zimbabwe exposed the frailty of manual voting methods. With paper ballots, voters cannot be sure that their preference will be reflected in the results of the polls. Zimbabwe has a second chance to carry out a transparent electoral event now that it will be holding presidential elections this year, but since these will be carried out with manual methods, we might as well be expecting the same dreaded results that came out from last year’s internal referendum, if not worse. The recurrence of crimes such as ballot stuffing and identity theft breaks people’s trust in their electoral institutions. E-voting eliminates these problems easily. 

Speed

Elections need their results to be released to the public immediately after the closure of polling stations. The longer the announcement of final outcomes is delayed, the more the voters are prone to suspect their fairness. The chaos that took over the elections in Honduras should serve as a cautionary tale for other countries, as the final numbers for their November 18 primary elections were not known yet by the end of that month. This failure to deliver results on time could be immediately linked with corruption, which is unacceptable. Electoral technology does not allow for these inexplicable lags, as final results can be made public a few hours after closing the election. 

Security

Bringing back the Russian example, it is incredibly easy to breach security in manual elections. The implementation of transparent ballot boxes and more than 180,000 security web cameras did nothing to prevent the blatant occurrence of carousel voting and ballot stuffing during the March 2012 presidential elections. It becomes obvious then that any effort to eradicate electoral corruption paired with the use of manual methods is destined to fail.

Auditability 

When it comes to set an example about how audits can guarantee transparency to an electoral process, no country comes better than Venezuela. During last year’s Presidential election more than 16 audits certified the correct performance of the system before and after the election: from the voting machines, electronic ballots, and the biometric voter authentication system, to the transmission and totalization of the results. 

Accuracy 

For a voting system, accuracy is essential during the phases of voting, counting and transmission of results, so that the intention of every voter is respected and taken into account. Last year, Mongolians had the chance to employ an e-voting system that promised to be fast and reliable. However, the use of the Precinct-Count Optical Scanners (PCOS) developed by Dominion registered major inconsistencies between the electronic results in some precincts and the audits carried throughout, casting doubts about the credibility of the results.

2013 brings a new set of chances for electronic voting to attest its superiority over the dated and even dangerous manual voting methods. We hope to see more nations choose to successfully automate their elections in order to preserve the reliability, speed, accuracy, auditability and security of their electoral events.

The Hidden Costs of Manual Elections

Image by Jeff Stahler

One of the arguments most frequently used by detractors of electronic voting is its alleged high cost. Although automation certainly implies a significant initial investment in voting machines, critics often fail to see the economies of scales that electoral automation generate, which make electronic elections cheaper than manual elections when several electoral cycles are taken into consideration. Moreover, inaccurate and murky manual elections bring to the surface enormous “hidden” costs that need to be taken into account in order to fairly compare electoral systems.

In the presidential elections held in Mexico in 2006, according to the official numbers of the Mexican Electoral Court of the Judicial Power, candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) lost to Felipe Calderon by a narrow margin of nearly half percentage point. AMLO refused to accept the results alleging that a massive fraud was carried out, and commanded a series of street protests in the Federal District for more than two weeks. After such traumatic incidents, the only losers were not AMLO and his followers; paralyzing parts of one of the biggest metropolis in the world meant a strike to the Mexican economy beyond imagination. Manual elections, besides inaccuracy and little transparency, carry with them a series of latent costs that appear when this sort of “unexpected events” occur.

In spite of all efforts made by Mexico’s Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) to improve the administration of elections, the presidential elections held in Mexico a couple weeks ago lead to a very similar situation. AMLO, again in the second place, is refusing to accept results and assures to be able to prove multiple irregularities like pre-marked ballots, and purchase of votes, which question the accuracy and transparency of elections. Also, in light of the narrow difference between the first and second candidates in some jurisdictions, the IFE had to recount votes in about 68.000 (50%) polling stations. Even though we do not know the cost of the recounting process, it is probably an amount not easy to

disregard.

In the last six years Mexico has witnessed, first hand, how expensive it is to have an inefficient, murky, and outdated voting system. Cost analysis to compare voting systems should take into consideration these types of expenses to truthfully reflect the economic convenience of electronic voting.

Palm Beach County’s New Voting Disaster

(March 21st, 2012) A new voting scandal erupted in Florida’s Palm Beach County when authorities incorrectly certified two candidates as winners in the Wellington Village Council elections.

Due to a suspect program flaw that seemingly got overlooked in the software supplied by Dominion Voting, the results that were certified and announced by the Palm Beach County Elections Office gave the victory to the wrong candidates.

This serious incident is reminiscent of the 2000 presidential election, when voting authorities and service providers were incapable of deploying efficient solutions and over two million votes were invalidated in what has become known as the Butterfly Ballot disaster. Palm Beach was among the counties using the obsolete technology that allegedly induced voters to make mistakes, either selecting the wrong candidates or making more than one vote in the ballot.

Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office Susan Bucher is now blaming Dominion Voting, the company providing voting and tabulating equipment to the county, for the recent electoral fiasco. She stated that software errors were the root of the problems. The company is disputing her argument and claims to be "investigating the source of the anomaly”.

Regardless of where the blame will fall, Palm Beach County’s electoral authorities need to guarantee the success of elections soon to come. It is imperative to better train poll workers and election officials; and to perform sufficient testing and auditing before, during and after each process. Only a few weeks ago, and while facing all sorts of difficulties in the testing stages, Dominion offered modems to reduce the time to produce results. In the field tests they found out that the modems were incompatible with the county's phone lines. In light of the software & hardware know-how and experience now available in the market however, errors of this type are unacceptable. 

It has been almost ten years since President Bush signed the Help America Vote Act into a federal law. HAVA was the response to the controversy surrounding the 2000 presidential elections in which he was reelected President. The law brought positive changes such as the creation of the Election Assistance Commission, mandating the replacement of obsolete technology (punch cards and lever-based voting systems), and setting a minimum of election administration standards. 

Electronic voting has surpassed manual voting when clear rules and experienced, competent authorities are met with a technology provider capable of delivering up to the expectations. Around the world, electronic voting has been steadily implemented with excellent results. Moreover, it has proven key in contributing to bring stability to nations with politically turbulent atmospheres. 

Unfortunately, Palm Beach County, home of paradisiacal beaches and full of vacation resorts, has a sad record of voting scandals, and this new incident, where Dominion Voting and the Palm Beach County electoral authorities have been the protagonists, has not helped to make it any better. 

Overall, it's obvious that the United States of America, a foremost economic, military and technological world power, needs to step up and set more rigorous standards in its voting practices. Voting is the fundamental act of a nation’s core values, Democracy.

Manual Voting Absurdities Around the World

Picture: Wagner T. Cassimiro "Aranha" 

The processes supporting democracy are no laughing matter. Elections of all sizes have a great deal of importance for the areas they cover, but this doesn't mean that there are not laughable absurdities when it comes to the world of politics. More specifically, there have been many absurd situations over the years regarding manual voting.