E-voting mandated for listing companies in Taiwan

Democracy takes on many forms and is exercised in a variety of situations. The most common and best-known mechanism where individuals cast their vote is in the context of a governmental election, as would be the case when citizens elect a new mayor of the city or president of the country. E-voting has been demonstrated in a number of democracies around the world, including Estonia and Brazil, but the context of voting—and the use of electronic voting technology—is not limited to the context of electing government officials.  

Students at a school vote for a class president, for example, and board members vote on a variety of issues in corporations and companies of all sizes. And just as innovation, security and integrity are cornerstones of a solid government election, these same principles apply in the context of business and corporate voting too. To this end, the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) has just made the unprecedented move of facilitating e-voting among listed companies. Indeed, the TWSE expects that more than half of the listed companies will opt for e-voting mechanisms by next year.

That is over 400 companies in a country that is becoming increasingly well known for technology innovation. Global brands like Asus, Gigabyte and Acer are all based in Taiwan.

One of the major goals of this initiative is that the TWSE wants to enhance “the corporate governance of the Taiwanese capital market and [facilitate] the adoption of e-voting for the benefit of foreign and domestic investors.”

Key stakeholders in a number of Taiwanese companies have the right to have their voices heard in the context of corporate decision making and the adoption of e-voting allows them to exercise this right more easily and more freely. The move toward more widespread use of e-voting allows for greater transparency among corporate decision-making and corporate governance, forcing executives to be held more accountable for the directions that their companies take.

The ruling comes by way of Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC), which will now require all listed companies in the TWSE to adopt e-voting if they have over $2 billion of paid-in-capital and over 10,000 shareholders. For any shareholder meetings that take place after January 1, 2016, an electronic voting option must be in place. As it stands, over 200 companies have already adopted e-voting as part of their governance process and this initiative should lead to some hundreds more.

Major corporate decisions, like the election of directors and supervisors, will now be more transparent with greater accountability than ever before. This is a model that can and should be followed in many other corporate environments around the world. E-voting facilitates better representation of shareholders because of greater accessibility both to the voting mechanism and to the reports of results.

Taiwan is a country that has long since aimed to balance its traditional values and heritage with the fast-moving advances of modern technology. It comes with a great culture and a storied history, but Taiwan is also home to some of the biggest names in the technology industry. In this way, it only follows reason that it would be among the first to mandate the implementation of e-voting technologies in corporate governance processes. 

And this once again demonstrates that discussion of e-voting need not be restricted to the context of public government elections; it can be applied to nearly every segment of the modern world.

Should governments fight low turnout with compulsory voting?

Following the mere 36% voter turnout in May's European Union elections, many experts have asked how they can increase the number of people who make it to the polls. This is not only for future elections in the European Union, but also for local, regional and national elections all around the world.

Daniel Lobo

It's a common problem in many democratic nations and it's one that governing bodies need to address. There are at least two prominent strategies being discussed and both of these strategies can be used in tandem for the greatest impact. The first of these is to implement compulsory voting. 

If eligible citizens who do not exercise their right to vote are penalized in some way -typically through the application of fines- then the effective voter turnout rate should be practically 100%. In Belgium, where voting is compulsory, voter turnout is typically over 90%. Elected Government officials can then justifiably say that they represent the will of the people. 

When there is low voter turnout, as was the case with the EU, it can be argued that the elected officials are only representing the will of a select minority: those who actually made it to the polls to cast a ballot. 

On the other hand, the very spirit of democracy is based on the notion of personal freedom. If a free citizen is forced to vote, then he or she is no longer free. Indeed, the very act of abstaining to vote can be a political statement by itself.

The second big strategy being discussed is the increased adoption of technology in the electoral process, including e-voting technology for casting ballots, as well as the possible adoption of Internet voting. This would be particularly effective in reducing voter apathy among young people, as that demographic largely embraces e-voting. Members of the so-called Generation Y (or “Millennials”), as well as much of Generation X, grew up with technology being an integral part of their lives. They use the Internet and mobile devices on a daily basis to conduct the rest of their business, so why not include technology as part of exercising their democratic right to vote as well?

Indeed, Max Benwell of The Independent argues that these two strategies should be combined. He supports compulsory online voting as a means to “revolutionise the way our political system works.” If voting is mandatory, it may as well be convenient. “It would be quick and easy,” he writes, “with no more trudging down to your local polling centre.”

The use of Internet voting could be accompanied by a mobile app that can provide voters with more information about the platforms of each of the candidates. This way, they can make a more educated decision more easily. It is a sad state of affairs when more people (at least in the United Kingdom) are likely to vote on a reality TV talent show than they are to vote on who should represent them in government. A big part of that has to do with access and convenience. The democratic process needs to be secure, of course, but it also shouldn't feel like so much of a chore and a burden. Even if people don't want to vote, they should feel committed to do so. And maybe compulsory voting, perhaps with an option to cast a ballot online or by a more efficient and accessible e-voting system, is the way to improve the situation.

E-voting excels in Ecuador

Santo Domingo used technology
provided by Smartmatic. Image: El Comercio

Ecuador ran three electronic voting pilots yesterday as voters elected 5,651 regional offices in the 2014 sectional elections. 

In order to implement these technologies, the Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE), Ecuador´s highest electoral office, reached agreements with electoral commissions from Venezuela, Russia and Argentina. Their experience in election automation proved key for the success of the project.

Two of the voting pilots -in Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas and Azuay- were binding. In La Morita, only 194 voters cast their vote in an experimental pilot using Russian technology. 

Smartmatic, a London based company, provided voting technology and services to conduct the entire process in Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas. This pilot ran smoothly. Only one hour after polls closed authorities had in their possession official results. For the voters, voting was trouble -free. They used touch screen voting machines which provide a physical vote receipt via a built-in printer. The company offered training, running a support center, preparing, deploying and collecting the electronic electoral kits, among other services. 

In total, in Santo Domingo, 1,221 voting machines were deployed in 53 polling centers to receive 326.932 registered voters. Among the technologies used in the pilot, this was the only 100% automated and verifiable voting experience in the pilot. 

In Azuay, the CNE of Ecuador managed the entire voting process. However, to capture the intent of the voters, they had Magic Software Argentina provide 3,022 voting machines. Some polling centers presented problems with this technology. In the Canton Ponce Enriquez , the voting had to be suspended  because the voting machines had not been properly configured. Authorities will announce today when the voting will be resumed.  

The Russian technology deployed in La Morita, Pichincha province, comprised only 4 Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines. 2 were intended for voters, one for training and one was kept for contingency purposes. Only 194 voters used this technology. 

In spite of the glitches in Azuay, the pilots can be considered successful. Hopefully, after this positive experience, Ecuador will move to full implementation in the near future.

Electronic voting makes it into TED

Mr. Bismark during his talk. Photo: TED

Since 1990 TED has held conferences in different cities of the United States to address an array of topics related to Technology, Entertainment and Design. Using a rather informal setting, guest speakers present ideas and demonstrate their expertise in presentations lasting 18 minutes at most. 

In July, 2010, David Bismark attended TED to present a system he designed along with some colleagues, to guarantee transparent and verifiable elections. According to Bismark, the problem his e-voting system addresses is the difficulty each voter encounters to know that his/her vote was recorded accurately and that it actually counted correctly, while remaining anonymous. 

This new system relies on the use of a Precinct Count Optical Scanner machine to capture the intention of the voter. What is innovative about it is the design and particularities of the printed ballot it uses. Voters receive a ballot in which candidates are on the left side, and the ovals/square to mark the preference and a 2D encryption bar are on the right side. Once the voter marks his option, he/she proceeds to tear the ballot through the middle. The right part of the ballot, where options are marked, is scanned and then returned to the voter to keep as a registry of the vote. Now, not all ballots are the same. Candidates are randomly organized in the left side of the ballots, so once the ballot is divided into two separate pieces, nobody can tell for which candidate the marked vote is related to.

Although the system is quite inventive, it does not address many of the issues that are important in a electronic voting system. From the moment the voter arrives to the precinct, to the moment results are announced, an election involves 7 main steps: Authentication of the voter, activation of the voting session, voting, counting of the votes, results collection, consolidation and proclamation. 

During Bismark's presentation, he failed to mention any special mechanisms to address security in the results collection, consolidation and proclamation processes. If in fact, his system has solved security issues in those steps, the authentication and session activation are still manual processes prompt to suffer human error, be it involuntary or intentional.

Also, by utilizing PCOS, the voter cannot be completely sure the vote was properly accounted for. As opposed to machines that directly record the vote, a scanner works as an interpreter. Interpreters open the possibility for error. 

One last inconvenience we see in this system is the fact that ballot printing is one of the most onerous costs for electoral commissions. Printing different models of ballots so that the right side of the ballot cannot be associated to any candidate, once separated into two, represents a heavy burden for the finances of the elections commissions.

Voter biometric authentication - From Ghana to Venezuela

A Ghanian voter going through the
biometric verification process (Photo:UK in Ghana Flickr)

Although in this blog we promote the adoption of voting technologies as a mean to enhance efficiency and transparency, we understand the fact that having appropriate technology is not enough to guarantee success in election administration. A trouble-free implementation of the technology is paramount to achieve legitimate results. Also, the technology to be used on election day needs to be properly audited and tested, and mechanisms to solve unforeseen problems need to be developed. 

Two drastically different experiences serve to illustrate this point: the Venezuelan presidential elections held in October 7, and the December 7 elections in Ghana. 

In Venezuela, and for the first time in the history of elections, biometric devices were used to authenticate 100% of the voters. The elections ran smoothly, voting ended on time, and the results were published only two hours after polls closed. Opposition leaders conceded the defeat immediately. The very few problems encountered by voters on election day were solved according to a well designed contingency plan.

On the other hand, on December 7, Ghana headed back to the polls for the tenth election since democracy was reestablished in 1992. Although Ghana took an important step to increase electoral efficiency and transparency by automating this part of the electoral cycle, a poor implementation of the biometric system led to important setbacks that forced officials to extend voting for an extra day. According to the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers, 18% of polling stations across Ghana had some kind of problem with the biometric devices. In those regions were problems were reported, 33% of polling stations had difficulties. An inconvenience of this magnitude gave all the right to the opposition parties that lost the elections to complain, and served as basis to support their fraud claims. Political instability followed the elections, and post electoral violence erupted in certain cities. 

A few facts explain the different outcomes that biometric authentication had of in these two countries. In first place, the Venezuelan electoral commission was executing its eleventh automated election. The experienced gathered in eight years alongside Smartmatic, helped enormously. For Ghana, this was the first automation in their short democratic history.

Another determining factor was the fact that the Venezuelan platform was thoroughly revised prior to Election Day. More than 22 audits, tests and pilots were carried out in order to guarantee that the system worked properly. Technicians from all parties involved participated. In Ghana, the biometric platform was not sufficiently revised and that is one of the main arguments used  by opposition parties to explain the fraud allegedly committed. 

Also, in Venezuela, automation covered the entire election, from end-to-end, whereas in Ghana only the authentication relies on technology. Opposition parties claiming fraud in Ghana had little or no records to sustain their allegations. Authorities must ensure to build trust in the platform by allowing everyone to audit and review the system. Ghana and Venezuela are two good examples of what to do, and what not to do when it comes to automation.