WTO, other big issues to decide Vanuatu polls

Vanuatu Flag.
Source: Wikipedia

In previous posts we have highlighted the important role automation played in the past national elections held in the Philippines in 2010. We have also mentioned the clear path to e-voting that Indonesia is taking. However, Vanuatu, which is another Asian archipelago, is heading towards a new general election in which technology will not play any role. We will see how the process unfolds and the level of legitimacy voters confer to the announced results in theses rather simple elections.

Voters in the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu go to the polls on October 30, 2012 to elect their representatives in the 52-seat parliament. A number of issues could influence this year's vote, chief of which is the country's recent admission into the WTO.

The opposition, along with civil society, business chambers and church groups, is alleging that the government has made too many compromises in exchange for the WTO admission.  

Many fear that the deal would forbid Vanuatu from levying tariff on imports and has significantly reduced its ability to protect its own industries. 

The apprehension is by no means universal as some groups have expressed approval of the accession to the international trade body. However, Astrid Boulekone, general manager of the Vanuatu Chamber of Commerce and Industry said that the prevailing sentiment in the business sector is that of mistrust due to the lack of consultation before the accession.  She added that most people are unaware of what the WTO membership entails.  

"It's almost like the negotiations were conducted at the national level among senior government key officers, and that the private sector was not closely involved in the negotiation process," she said.

Aside from WTO, another important issue that could swing votes is Vanuatu's runaway cost of living which has outstripped salary levels. With prices of commodities spiraling upwards every quarter, middle and low income workers are finding it difficult to provide for their families. 

The phenomenon of urban migration is also causing an unexpected complication. An increasing number of people are moving into urban areas and yet with inadequate education, they are not able to get employment.  Education and job creation policies are shaping up to be another election battleground. 

With many young people turning voting age this year, Principal Electoral Officer Lawson Samuel said he expects a higher number of registered voters this year compared with the 152,043 registered in the 2008 polls. 

Voter turnout in Vanuatu is traditionally high, with the 1987 polls chalking up a record 83% turnout.  The last elections saw a voter turnout of 70.38%, still one of the highest in the world.  This year, with more young people getting involved in issues that affect them, election officials are projecting an even  higher number of voters will actually cast their ballots. 

Electoral audits in the US: good, but not perfect

Auditability is one of the elements that makes e-voting attractive to institutions looking to ensure that their elections processes are transparent and accurate. According to Joseph Lorenzo Hall, senior staff technologist at The Center for Democracy & Technology, post-election audits are “the single most important development in election technology in recent years.” Many states in the US use some type of electronic voting, and so some of them carry out audits as well. 

Audits in the US examine the equipment and procedures used to count the votes. The aim of these audits is to make sure that both the election yielded the correct result and everyone involved in the process followed proceedings according to law. To this end, in most cases, one percent of the ballots are recounted by hand in order to compare the result to what was reported on election night. Also, aspects such as poll worker training and chain-of-custody protocols are assessed. 

When it comes to verifying results, recounting one percent of the ballots by hand can be cumbersome in some cases, as some counties are large enough to have 1% represent about 200,000 votes. Besides, one percent is a pretty arbitrary number that could be too much for a large victory margin or too little for a tight match. Thus, new statistically-based techniques have been developed to offer more accurate audits. One is called a “risk-limiting audit” (RLA), where the number of ballots to recount varies depending on the margin of the election. More votes should be counted where victory was attained by a small margin and only a small number of incorrectly counted ballots could make the difference. 

Some election officials don’t agree with having to run post-electoral audits due to budget cuts making it difficult to pay those who perform them and the fact that most of the times nothing irregular shows up at the inspections. What these people are not taking into account is that even if irregularities are uncommon, when they do happen it takes a great amount of money to perform a total recount, so in the long run, audits actually represent cost savings for the governments running them.

There are some flaws in the current American audit system. For example, two states that use DRE technology do not emit vote receipts (also known as paper trails), so it is unclear how they audit their polls. Besides, only 25 states out of 50 make post-election audits a requirement. This is because the choice on whether to make audits mandatory or optional is in the hands of the state legislator. Some say that audits will not stop identity theft, but people need to know their intent is reflected in the results of the elections they have participated in. 

E-voting is finding its way into the American voting system, but it needs to be understood and used well in order for it to solve the problems that manual voting is not solving. Some of the benefits of e-voting come from its auditability, no doubt. A well-implemented e-voting platform guarantees secure, transparent, and accurate elections, but for this to happen the auditability element cannot be removed nor only marginally implemented. 

Find more information about post-election audits in the US here.

E-voting, ready for any contingency

Image: xandert

Countries with an automated voting system can always trust that their election days will run smoothly. Millions of people attending thousands of polling stations all throughout the nation may sound like an uncontrollable situation, but the reliability of voting automation makes it possible to turn elections into a safe and easy exercise for citizens and authorities alike. Moreover, if something unexpected happens shortly before the event and a modification in schedules or candidate lists becomes necessary, e-voting is ready to adapt to these abrupt changes. This is one more of its many advantages over manual voting methods.

A country’s political panorama is not exempt from contingencies that can alter the course of its electoral calendar. For example, a candidate could be abruptly forced to abandon the electoral race, or a major event could force the government to suspend elections and hold them on another day. For manual voting, this would be a tragedy, as logistics demand enough anticipation for the printing and deployment of material in the different polling places. A sudden change would translate into the loss of millions of dollars in wasted material, and reprogramming the event would take a long time before everything is ready one more time.

E-voting, on the other hand, offers alternatives that are adaptable to last-minute changes. DRE machines do not need paper ballots, as voters make their choice on a touchscreen and information is stored electronically. Therefore, if something were to change in terms of options for candidates, the only thing to do would be to reprogram the voting machines with the new candidate list. This obviously takes much less time than having to produce a whole new batch of paper ballots, not to mention its cost-effectiveness.

It is worth mentioning, though, that the ease with which voting machines can be tailored to emergency modifications does not mean that the information they carry after ballots are cast can be modified as well. Voting machines are equipped with advanced encryption software that shields them from any attempt to interfere with elections. Besides, after the machines are delivered at the polling stations and tested for zero votes, they can only be activated by each voter through a biometric authentication device. This way, security and transparency are always guaranteed.

Elections carried out through manual voting must somehow trust that nothing will deviate from the established plan in order to keep their schedule and material intact. Unforeseen events that become a threat to manually performed polls are mere bumps on the road for electronic voting, always reliable and up to any challenge.

Technology makes it easier for youth to register to vote

Registering to vote is the first step every citizen must take in order to exert his or her right to suffrage. Now that general elections are coming in the US, it is important that people register to choose their next president. It is worth noting that people under 30 constitute the largest group of unregistered voters in most states. In order to close this gap and engage the youth in politics, there are different initiatives to bring them closer to the polling stations. 

Generally speaking, in order for an American citizen to vote, he or she must fill an application and mail it to the Supervisor of Elections at the voter’s county, and wait for a voter information card. This whole procedure takes a couple of weeks—give or take, depending on whether the application was mailed or submitted personally—, and varies from state to state. It is indeed cumbersome, and it constitutes one of the reasons why many people opt out of their right to elect and leave decisions to fate or chance. Of course, this is a bad mistake, and not few organisms are trying to change this condition. There are many campaigns out there trying to appeal to potential voters, especially the younger ones, and invite them to register to vote. However, publicity alone doesn’t always do the trick. Students and young workers are not as patient as to fill out paper forms, put them in an envelope, pay postage, and wait, nor they have the time to go to an office and do paperwork there. Fortunately, in some states, technology is on people’s side, and it is increasingly appealing to the younger population.

This year, a new law makes it possible for residents of California to register online. The effect of this new legislation has been immediate: since September 19, more than 25,000 people have registered to vote through the state website. More impressive yet is the fact that the first day the online application became available, 10,000 people registered to vote. As expected, the younger voters have dominated the use of the new tool. 

Image: FreeStockPhotos

Washington State, on the other hand, has released a Facebook app through which voters can register online. When asked about privacy issues, the co-director of elections for Washington, Shane Hamlin, explained that Facebook does not have access to users’ social security number nor their driver’s license number, and that Facebook is merely the tool that connects voters to the State Elections page.

Much of the advocating for young voters to register has been done by Rock the Vote. Rock the Vote is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization whose main objective is to engage young people and build their political power. Using the alluring power of music, popular culture, and new technologies, Rock the Vote seeks to give young voters tools to learn and take action about issues that affect their lives. The most important way they can do this is by voting. Right now, Rock the Vote offers a customizable voting registration tool that anyone can install on their website. This way, young bloggers become an active instrument in the exercise of democracy. 

There is no doubt that online tools are an effective way to get young people to come closer to their right to suffrage. However, the efforts must not stop at registering. The next step is getting people to actually vote.