ISLAMABAD: Electronic voting machines (EVMs) and biometric verification systems are not the last word in polling systems and around the world, countries are reverting to old-fashioned paper ballots due to the problems faced when incorporating modern methods into existing electoral processes.

This was the crux of the discussion that took place on Thursday, during a discussion on ‘Can Technology Deliver Better Results?’ at the final day of the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) three-day conference on ‘Technology and Strengthening Democracy’.

According to Mudassir Rizvi of the Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen), the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is pursuing biometric verification and says that electronic voting machines (EVM) will be operational by 2016. The process whereby the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) and ECP are inviting bids for the development of these systems, however, is not transparent. “We don’t know what vendors are telling them in their presentations,” he said, adding that the ECP’s plans were “ambitious, but not completely viable”.

He said that in the previous general elections, several electoral experiments were carried out; some of which were highly controversial while others, such as the magnetic ink, had failed miserably.

Experts at UNDP conference question need for ECP’s ‘ambitious, but impractical’ approach

Around the world, developed nations are moving back to a more paper-based system of voting because there are fears regarding the viability of electronic voting mechanisms. The fact that electronic voting mechanisms do not leave a paper trail, and may compromise voters’ right to secrecy, have forced many countries to revert, he said.

In addition, he said that under the existing systems, ordinary citizens could ask for a review of the polling process at any point because the relevant records were available with government departments. In case ECP opts for a vendor-developed voting system, the technicalities of the voting process would be in the hands of whoever developed the system, Mr Rizvi said.

When the house was opened for questions, the audience – composed mostly of development professionals and students – posed very rudimentary queries about how technology in general could be applied to help solve specific problems around the elections. But speakers from the panel stressed that technology was merely a tool and that “machines were only as honest as their human users”.

Ronan McDermott, a UNDP elections management specialist, summed up the confusion when he noted that biometric verification processes and EVMs, while complimentary, could also be used separately from each other. There are several different points where biometric verification can be conducted and it was not necessary to use it in tandem with EVMs. Some countries, he said used biometric verification at the entrance to polling stations to verify voters’ identity while still using paper ballots. He also spoke about anomalies in the system, such as people whose fingerprints are unreadable.

He and Mr Rizvi stressed the importance of contingency planning for electoral exercises. Mr McDermott quoted the example of the recent elections in Kenya, where EVMs were in place and worked fine “until about lunchtime, when the batteries ran out in several polling stations and they had to revert to manual voting”.

Calling for wider public discourse on the question of electoral reforms, he also said that something as significant as this should not be decided in isolation, even by a parliamentary committee, adding that wider public consultation was a must in a case such as this. Mr Rizvi also echoed this sentiment when he said that, “Technology is not a replacement for trust.”

When asked what could be done to fix the problems with the human element, which consistently seemed to fail in nearly all electoral exercises, Mr Rizvi maintained that, “The human factor will continue to fail, unless there is strict enforcement of mechanisms and accountability.”

Some key issues were raised during Q&A sessions. A participant from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa raised the issue of women not being allowed to vote and asked the panelists whether technology offered any solutions to this problem. “No,” was Mr McDermott’s matter-of-fact answer. “No technology can change what human beings do or think,” he said, adding that dealing with such issues required reform and accountability and a change of social attitudes.

A participant hailing from Gilgit-Baltistan pointed out that despite being a citizen of Pakistan, he was unable to exercise his right to franchise in any voting exercise, save for elections to GB’s legislative assembly. This drew sympathetic applause from the audience, but when he asked what solutions technology could offer for him and his people, UNDP electoral consultant Skye Christensen said that it would perhaps be more prudent to wait until after the elections to introduce modern methods to the GB elections.

Published in Dawn, October 17th, 2014