The Challenge Electronic Voting Poses

Now that elections are around the elections are around the corner, its time to rejuvenate the electronic voting debate. In fact, Kenyans in diaspora now want the government to confirm the use of electrical voting in the next general election. To avoid the recurrence of the chaos in 2007, it would be prudent to adopt technology in the next electoral process. According to the Election officials it could take six years before Kenya adopts an electronic voting system, which is attributed to the high cost of deploying the system. In an effort to initiate a gradual migration to electronic voting, IIEC has already commenced electronic voter registration in 18 constituencies. A total of about 1.5 million voters were registered and their demographic details captured – including biometric features; a facial image and fingerprint.

By definition, electronic voting encompasses different types of voting that embrace both electronic means of casting a vote and electronic means of vote counting. Electronic voting technology punched cards, optical scan voting systems and specialized voting kiosks. Care should be taken since electronic voting can be vulnerable and could facilitate electoral fraud. The technology has been around for a while, since punched card systems debuted in the 1960s. Currently, Internet voting systems have gained popularity and have been used for government elections and referendums in the United Kingdom, Estonia and Switzerland as well as municipal elections in Canada and party primary elections in the United States and France.

Electronic voting technology has its benefits. For instance, it can speed the counting of ballots and can provide improved accessibility for disabled voters. It can also provide a convenient mode of voting for Kenyan in the Diasporas. However, there are some shortcomings of this technology, casing point - the United States Presidential Election of 2000 that spurred the debate about electronic voting. In the aftermath of the election, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) was passed to help states upgrade their election technology in the hopes of preventing similar problems in future elections. Unfortunately, the electronic voting systems that many states purchased to comply with HAVA actually caused problems in the presidential election of 2004.

Deployment of electronic voting systems is also complex and expensive, thus electronic ballots may not necessarily be less costly than printed ballots. The cost never goes down. Actually, the cost only goes up as the machines age and need more parts and upgrading. If Kenya were to use touch-screen voting machines, similar to a touch ATM, it would cost of between Kshs. 1.35 Million and Kshs. 2.7 Million per precinct - precinct consists of between 5 and 10 machines respectively. Other costs would include operation and maintenance of the machines, power, storage of the machines as well as programming, testing, auditing and transporting them to precincts on election days.

There are plenty of implementation and policy problems with moving to electronic voting systems, but the technology the benefits far out way these problems. Having suffered post-electoral chaos, Kenya would consider such an option that would provide an election process much more transparent for officials and voters. The benefits for citizens are immediate and obvious, in particular the improved services for voters and less time required to vote, hence shorter queues. Another advantage is that the new systems' step-by-step process will prevent situations in which a citizen mistakenly votes more than once. There is faster tabulation of results, improved accessibility, greater accuracy, and lower risk of human and mechanical errors. Recall the infamous form 16A during the 2007 General election.

Many countries have attempted to take advantage of electronic voting. Electronic voting in Estonia began in October 2005 local elections when Estonia became the first country to have legally binding general elections using the Internet as a means of casting the vote and was declared a success by the Estonian election officials. In 2005 Estonia became the first country to offer Internet voting nationally in local elections. 9,317 people voted online. In 2007, the Australian Defence Force and Defence civilian personnel deployed on operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Timor Leste and the Solomon Islands had the opportunity to vote via the Defence Restricted Network with an Australian Electoral Commission and Defence Department joint pilot project. Electronically submitted votes were printed following polling day, and dispatched to the relevant Divisions for counting. Kenya might strive to make a mark in being the pioneer of electronic voting in Africa.

Is There a Gap Between Industry and Academia?

During the CIO 100 on 29th to 30th November, 2011 at Safari Park, there was a heated debate on whether there is a gap between industry and academia in Kenya. The answer to this question is a definite ‘Yes’, not a ‘maybe’ but a ‘Yes’. The fact is demonstrated by there shear requirement of experience during most of the companies’ recruitment process. If the industry was confident with the product of the academia, the years of experience would not be required for entry jobs. Another illustration of this gap is based on the fact that we rarely find products in the market as a result of ideas conceived in the academia. Mostly, we source for products and services from abroad. One of the illustrations is the construction of Nairobi-Thika super highway; we have locally sourced for raw materials and manual labour, while hiring engineering, design and construction services from India and China. Don’t we have skilled engineers to handle such a task?

Now that we have identified this gap, how do we bridge it? First, the academia needs to be aware of what exists in the industry. For instance, professors can visit the various manufacturing plants and telcos to catch a glimpse of the technology in use. The academia needs to understand what the industry considers as deliverables. A manufacturing plant, for example, would like an engineer who can configure or troubleshoot a Programmable Logic Circuit (PLC) for a conveyor belt using a Graphical User Interface (GUI) in the shortest time possible. No manufacturer would be interested in a graduate who studied the intricate details of a transistor, but rather the application of it in modern technology. Once this awareness has been created, the academia can then develop a focused curriculum that instills skills required in the industry.

Secondly, the industry needs to reach out to the academia. Safaricom Ltd in collaboration with Strathmore University has set a good example introducing a Master of Science (MSc.TID) programme is designed to support innovation and entrepreneurship in the Telecommunication sector as in important pillar of sustainable economic development. Using such an approach, we can tackle the problem of lacking job readiness in the telecommunications sector is partnerships between the industry and academia. The Cisco Networking Academy (NetAcad) is also aimed at responding to these challenges. The curriculum incorporates hands-on experience when teaching students about computer networks. The NetAcad Program offers various curricula, viz, CCNA, CCNP, Network Security, Fundamentals of Wireless LAN, which cover the principles and practice of designing, building, and maintaining networks capable of supporting national and global organizations.

Another applicable aspect of encouraging the collaboration between academia and industry is exhibitions and competitions. These activities would enable those students to solve real-world engineering problems. . Competition veterans become employees who can be productive on the job from day one. One such activity is the IEEE Centurion Engineering Students Exhibition. The exhibition proves there is a need and opportunity for Kenya to organise an Innovation System in which academia, private sector and public sector collaborate. The Government, through National Council for Science and Technology (NCST), can play a facilitating role to create an innovation system that takes full advantage of Kenya’s comparative advantages.

In Indian, major IT firms have launched partnering initiatives with various institutions of higher learning. For instance, Infosys has launched a program called 'Campus Connect' to align the education being given at various engineering colleges, with the requirements of the industry. On the other hand, Tech Mahindra, a joint venture of Mahindra group and British Telecom, have set up an engineering college, Mahindra College of Engineering, that will equip engineers with the skills required in the industry. Wipro, an innovative IT company in the IT services, BPO and Research and Development, has also started a program called the Wipro Academy of Software Excellence, in association with The Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS) to prepare fresh graduates for careers in software programming and provide them with the necessary skills. If Kenya follows these examples, the gap between the academia and the industry will be extinct.