Kenya is firmly on the path to a fully automated electronic voting system.

Sci & Tech
BY JAMES RATEMO

With an 80 per cent successful implementation of electronic voter registration and vote tallying at the August 4 2010 Referendum, there are all indications that Kenya would embrace the system on large scale in 2012 General Elections.

Electronic Voter Registration is a system that uniquely identifies the voter by capturing the biometric features (face recognition and fingerprint).
It is a precursor to electronic voting, a system that has been used in India, US, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada and France among others.

TOP: A screen at the national tallying centre with live  results streaming in real-time. Below: IIEC clerks capture details of a voter using the electronic system. PHOTOS: BONIFACE OKENDO/STANDARD]



Pilot project

The Interim Independent Electoral Commission (IIEC) launched the electronic voting system in the country on April 12 with electronic data capture in 18 selected constituencies. A total of 1.4 million voters were registered with the Electronic Voting System.  

The constituencies include Langata and Kamukunji constituencies in Nairobi, Mvita and Malindi in Coast Province, Dujis and Wajir East in North Eastern, South, Imenti Central, and Mbooni in Eastern, Nyeri Town and Kikuyu in Central, Eldoret North, Nakuru Town, and Ainamoi in Rift Valley, Ikolomani, and Webuye in Western, and Kisumu Town West and Bonchari in Nyanza.
Thanks to this advancement, the IIEC begun transmission and tallying of results just an hour after the polling was closed, something that is unthinkable with the manual process.
The system is real time and allows for audit trails to individuals in case there is a mess and guarantees democratic, tamper-proof electoral system that would make impossible manipulation of voting outcome at polling points and rigging games at tallying centres.

Electronic voting

When voting using the new system, immediately a vote is cast by pressing a button, the act is immediately reflected at the constituency tallying point and at the IIEC control tower for instantaneous compilation and release. It took less than five hours to compile reasonable results after the eferendum was closed, a testimony of how efficient the system can be, down from the 48 hours cap set in the law.
It is hoped the system will  end the era of the ineffective manual process that is partly to blame for the devastating 2007 post-election violence.

successful pilot

According to the IIEC Chairman Mr Ahmed Isaak Hassan, the electronic transmission of results has successfully been piloted during the South Mugirango bye-lections.
Kenya is learning from India, which has a reputable electronic voting system, which was successfully used last year in the country’s general elections with over 700 million people voting.
On March 22, the IIEC commenced a national voter registration exercise to compile a new  register of an estimated 18 million voters for the referendum and the 2012 general election.
The move had been necessitated by the fact the voters’ register used in the aborted 2007 General Election, contained up to two million ‘ghost’ names.

In an Interview with Tech.Insight, Bismark Ong’ondi, the IIEC Director of ICT, said in the just concluded Referendum, the commission used electronic transmission of results in 80 per cent of polling stations across the 210 constituencies.
“We could not cover all the areas since some are not covered by the two leading mobile phone networks, whose platform we were using, ” said Ong’ondi.
Unlike the old system, which requires voters to manually register their details after presenting their identification cards, the electronic system includes storing of fingerprints and a digital passport size image.

Fingerprints

“The fingerprints and the photo of the voter is directly stored in the database,” explains Ong’ondi.
“Our system can capture up to 10 fingerprints, and even if the fingerprints fail to work, we can still use the ID Card number to search details of a voter.”
In the manual register, poll officials cross the name of those who have voted, a system that is time wasting and tedious.
In the electronic system, one cannot vote twice because the electronic system registers all those that have voted and a second attempt is easily detected.
more storage
“The system stores more information about the voter than the manual register, which leaves loopholes for impersonation.”
“The electronic system is secure as fingerprints cannot be duplicated and requires no technological background to use,” said the expert.
During voting, a registered voter only needs to press a finger against a scanner, and all details pop up on a screen from which a poll officer counterchecks the details and gives the voter ballot paper to cast.

Electronic casting

“We are yet to start the electronic casting of ballot papers but that is where we are headed,” he says.
“Currently, we are just registering the voters and generating electronic registers. We also relay the results from polling stations to constituency and national tallying centres using mobile phones and computers.”
Ong’ondi says in all the polling stations where the electronic system is used, the presiding officers and other pool officers use low-cost mobile phones, which are GPRS-enabled to send results to the constituency and national tallying centres real-time.
The GPRS technology rides on mobile network to transmit data — meaning the system works in  all areas covered by mobile networks. From the constituency-tallying centre, normal office computers are used to relay data to the national tallying centres
This makes it near impossible to rig, since once the information is sent, it is seen by the public via a screen, and those at the national tallying centre. The system also automatically adds up the results as they trickle.

“This way, less time is spent to achieve the final figure. To ensure reliability, the computers used come with power backups and the mobile phones have long life battery life,” Ong’ondi says.
The current law requires that the forms carrying results be physically transferred to the constituency (Form Six) and national (Form Seven) tallying centres. This means results received electronically remain provisional until hard copies are received.
legal framework
“As it is, there is no legal framework to recognise digital election results. This forces us to wait for poll officers to physically deliver results on hard copy to the tallying centres before we declare the final results,” he says.

Legal framework

“We hope to put up legal frameworks to completely eradicate manual recording as is done in India,” argues Ong’ondi.
Each of the phones used to transmit polling results is specifically configured to transmit data through a dedicated access point in the virtual Private network (VPN) and any other phone cannot be used to transmit to the tallying centre.
This also applies to the computers, which utilise cable or wireless Internet connectivity depending on the location.
“We are still having hurdles covering areas not covered by mobile network, but we intend to introduce phones that use satellite technology, so that we can cover the remotest of areas,” says Ong’ondi.
He says the system used is economical on bandwidth and results from one constituency cannot consume more than one kilobit (kb) of data.

A recent national opinion poll in Kenya showed 83 per cent of the electorate wants electronic voting introduced for the next election scheduled for 2012.
The survey sampled 2,537 respondents in 20 constituencies.
The Institute for Education in Democracy Director Peter Aling’o said Kenyans were embracing technology to protecting the integrity of their votes.

Prime Minister Raila, who kicked off the electronic voter registration exercise in his Lang’ata Constituency, said the Electronic Voter Register was a revolution from the outdated manual voter registration that was “susceptible to abuse by partisan electoral officials”.

In a past Interview with Tech.Insight, Hassan said his team requires Sh4.5 billion to register all voters electronically.
Other experts argue that the integrity of the system depends on honesty and professionalism of its administrators and the invincibility of its software to guard against such cyber-crimes as hacking, distortion of data, and computer viral attacks.
However from its successful implementation in the just concluded referendum and recent by-election, the system is a ray of hope to a better voting system.

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