Electronic voting is not a silver bullet for fair elections

In the polarised political environment Kenya finds itself in, the big question is: Is the country ready for a complementary manual voting system in case of biometric voter kits’ failure?

It is not lost on us that many voting machines in Africa have deliberately and spectacularly failed in the middle of elections. At least 25 countries in Africa have tried an electronic component of one kind of another in their systems. Many have experienced glitches.

In Kenya’s 2013 elections, biometric kits and electronic tallying systems broke down, forcing a manual tallying of votes. Opposition leaders filed a petition at the Supreme Court challenging the results that gave President Uhuru Kenyatta victory.

The Opposition lost after the court refused to admit its 800-page evidence.

Biometric systems are intended to ensure a clean voters register by eliminating “ghost” voters and chances for multiple voting, and ultimately delivering a credible election. But sometimes, the problem is more systemic and complicated.

In the first place, several African countries have moved to make their electoral bodies free from political interference; South Africa, Lesotho, DRC, Mali, Nigeria and Kenya have the word “Independent” in the name of their electoral commissions.

But in a way, that “independence” ensures freedom from scrutiny, and so can act as a cover for corruption perpetrated by the electoral body itself. It is especially acute when biometric systems are involved because they cost so much per voter, generating insatiable appetite for kickbacks.

Elections need not be an extravagantly expensive affair. Introducing biometric systems - coupled with the notoriously poor infrastructure in much of Africa- sends the bill skyrocketing. Kenya’s 2013 elections cost Sh20 billion.

With so much money at stake, it is not a wonder that the electoral body becomes fertile ground for corruption. The process of acquiring biometric kits is “so incompetently” handled that one must assume wilful negligence. Less than six months to the election, the procurement process had not even started due to political infighting and clash of interests.

Corruption allegations against former IEBC officials is a good example. They were implicated in a bribery scandal dubbed “Chickengate” where British suppliers paid them bribes to secure printing contracts.

The most vulnerable point in the electoral process is tallying of results. This is where it is easy to fiddle with figures at a low cost.

Getting 400 people, for instance, to vote twice or thrice requires a lot of mobilising and money. But adding an extra 400 votes to a final tally requires just the stroke of a pen, and bribing only one person- the returning officer.

While this happens, some degree of delay must be registered to decide how many more votes will be added to the paying candidate. This is why most electoral violence breaks out when results take too long to announce, because it is assumed the delay is to allow some mathematical tricks.

A common tactic of incumbents is to hold on to results from areas where they have strong support as they wait to see how the count unfolds, to allow them decide how much to inflate.

It is illuminating that more mature democracies are moving away from electronic voting systems mainly because of their vulnerability and opacity.

No country is perfectly and sufficiently insulated against general computer software interference by third parties. The USA is now probing interference with its November 2016 elections.