TECHNOLOGY IN ELECTIONS

This last week, Kenyans went to the ballot to elect a new batch of political leaders that will charge with the responsibility of moving this country forward in the next 5 years. For the first time under the new constitutional dispensation, the country elected country governors and senators besides the members of parliament that they have been used to electing in the last 10 elections since independence. First and foremost, Kenyans must be applauded for coming out in very large numbers to express their constitutional rights through their vote and for enduring long queues waiting patiently for the final results of the election. It goes without saying that the Independent electoral and boundaries commission did all that they could within the constraint of time and resources to organize and execute a free and fair election for our country. It is however important to note that the challenges experienced in the use of ICT technology to identify registered voters during voting and to electronically transmit elections to the national tallying centre based at Bomas of Kenya in Nairobi even though created national anxiety should not be taken to mean that such technologies cannot be successfully deployed in our country.

Following the bungled 2007 general election where it became very difficult to establish a clear winner in those elections, it has been clearly apparent that Kenyans need more transparent mechanisms of ensuring a free, fair and credible election. Indeed, among the recommendations made by the Kriegler Commission was that Kenyan needed to turn a clean page on the way it manages and conduct its elections. The starting point was to disband the old elections commission and establish the independent elections and boundaries commission. What followed was new voter registration drive using more efficient technological tools based on ICT technology that would minimize challenges of election rigging occasioned by double registrations and voting, manipulation of voter registers and vote stuffing occasioned by long delay in transmissions of results. 

Towards this end the IEBC undertook to replace manual voter registration with electronic biometric voter registration (BVR) in which key personal security features such as fingerprints and facial image were captured in the voter register and used for identifying the voter during the election allowing election officials to verify the authenticity of the voter using their fingerprints and to track all the operator activities thereby curb fraudulent activities during voting. It must be noted that it is the efficiency of theses kits that enabled IEBC to register over 14 million voters within a very short period of time. 

Even though the  deployment of the electronic voter identification kit in the 33000 polling stations in the country on 4^th March 2013 did not meet the expectation of all Kenyan based on the very higher failure rates, this should not from the basis of castigating the use of technology in running election processes. Effective utilization of any technology depends on various internal and external factors and which must put into consideration for optimal results. Some of the critical factors include the magnitude of national ICT coverage, adequate training of users, adaptability of the technology to local condition, general public perception, and the robustness of the technology to deliver the desired output. Taken against these factors, it must be remembered that IEBC ordered the kits late and therefore did not have time to adequately test the versatility of the kits to the Kenyan system. Due to the same time constrain, the  training of the election clerks on the use of these kits and technicalities involved was also not enough to allow all involved to trouble shoot and develop clear procedures and back-up systems in cases of unforeseen challenges like occurred during the election day. 

Experiences from other countries that have tried to use these kits in Africa such as Ghana, Nigeria and the DRC have also shown that without adequate logistical and technical planning, electronic voting are bound to disappoint. On the other hand, electronic transmission of results as envisaged by the IEBC can work be improved with the involvement of all ICT stakeholders but must ensure that all security issues aspects of such data are taken care of. Kenya has a wide coverage of mobile and internet telephony network supported by an efficient bundle width that should not present any challenge to its use it transmitting election results. In a s much as most internet users have not complained of security issues, building such a sensitive platform must take care of groups which for one reason or the other would want to hack into such systems and interfere with the validity of transmitted data.