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PROF THAKUR TALKS ON E-VOTING, BALLOTS, THE PRE-ELECTORAL, POST-ELECTORAL AND ELECTORAL PERIODS

PROF THAKUR TALKS ON E-VOTING, BALLOTS, THE PRE-ELECTORAL, POST-ELECTORAL AND ELECTORAL PERIODS

The Durban University of Technology’s (DUT’s) Director of the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) e-Skills CoLab, Professor Colin Thakur recently gave his expert presentation titled: “Digital Democracy – Is it On or Off?”

His talk was at the hybrid Tayarisha Lunch Box Series which took place at the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies, North Lodge Wits Management Campus.

Prof Thakur, who is also the Research Chair in Digitalisation at the DUT, is an e-democracy consultant and

trainer focusing on automating components of the Electoral Cycle through technology such as e-voting, electronic transmission, e-referendums and biometric registration.

Tayarisha is the African Centre of Excellence for Digital Governance, newly established in 2021 at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. It is a hub for teaching, research, policy dialogue, and outreach on the challenges and opportunities presented by digitisation in the public sector, society, and industry in Africa. The convener of the event was Dr Halfdan Lynge-Mangueira from Wits University.

Prof Thakur’s topic of discussion looked at the fact that voting is a human right which in accordance to Article 21 of the United Nations Human Rights, says that one has the right to vote, in secret and that secret vote must be counted, also the vote must neither be provable by the voter nor the system.

He then went on to explain the definition of e-voting, elucidating the pre-electoral period, post-electoral period and electoral periods.

“Electronic voting (also known as e-voting) is a term encompassing several different types of voting, embracing both electronic means of casting a vote and electronic means of counting votes,” he added.

He then spoke on the criteria’s one should be aware of in terms of voting which are voter secrecy, voter security, transparency, ease of voting, speed and efficiency of counting and the effect on voter turnout and equity of access.

“Voter secrecy means a person’s vote must be kept secret, but the amassed votes of various contestants must be public, in terms of voter security it means that an eligible voter may vote, that voter cannot prove their vote and only that vote is counted. There must be transparency which relays that the voting process must be intuitive and simple as well as voting should be understandable,” he stressed.

Prof Thakur made mention that the ballots must be counted with a speed and accuracy and be auditable.

“Youth relate to technology not paper. Voting technology actually simplifies voting for people with disabilities (PWD), for the illiterate and for elderly voters,” he said.

Prof Thakur gave clarification on the criteria’s and what it means for e- voting and a brief history on voting. He spoke of the earliest of times of voting like in Greece, 500BC where the Greeks used voting in a negative form which had nothing to do with right or wrong or ‘justice’.

“It was preemptive; you were simply voted off,” said Prof Thakur. The vote was cast on broken pottery pieces called ostraca. This is where the word ostracize comes from.

Prof Thakur conveyed about voting in India in 750 AD and the process it entailed, like the use of a huge mud pot (Kudam) serving as a ballot box where the voters had to write the name of the desired candidate on the palm leaf (Panaiolai) and drop it in the pot.

“At the end of the process, the leaves (votes) are counted candidate-wise. The highest number of votes was deemed the winner,” he said.

He relayed that given the Indian inclination to chewing leaves, maybe this is where the term to chew on something came from,” he chuckled.

Prof Thakur further spoke on the Italian ballotta in the1500s, where black balls were used to deny participation, which introduced the term “blackball”. He commented on the inception of the mechanical lever voting which was since1892, which became pervasive in the 1900s.

“It introduced speed and accuracy, which were accepted, but no auditability as re-counts were not possible. Also, in terms of usage,14% was still used by the 2004 US elections, 112 years after introduction!” he revealed.

However, Prof Thakur conveyed that it introduced logistics issues as it was huge and difficult to transport and store. This was followed by the Punch Card System which saw 13% by the 2004 elections. He imparted that it solved auditability, however, it introduced ballot designs issues.

He described Optical Sense (OS) which is an electronic counting and scanning machine, Direct Recording Electronic (DRE), a functionally and physically integrated electronic voting system and Urna, a telephone keypad used in Brazil whose design immensely reduced the need for voter education. Further on, Prof Thakur focused on the evolution of Electoral Technology speaking of controlled and uncontrolled environments for voters, internet voting and mobile voting. He emphasized the role e-voting plays, saying that it is accurate, faster democracy: quicker tallying and output like in countries such as India and Brazil. He looked at countries with multiple simultaneous elections such as the Philippines which had six simultaneous elections and California which routinely uses Super Tuesday for referenda.

Prof Thakur commented on why politicians may love e-voting, terminologies such as voter turnout, hacking of e-voting, SMS voting, international e-voting experiences, the statistical data on elections and e-voting, adoption patterns of e-voting and countries who have abandoned e-voting such as India, Norway, Estonia, Philippines, Namibia, to name but a few. He stated the strengths, opportunities and advantages of e-voting, voter registration and validation with the use of the Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems (AFIS) which mitigates ballot stuffing while ensuring one-person, one-vote but needs server real-time connection.

His talk made mention of the Electronic Transmission of Results which Prof Thakur added was the most fragile part of an election, is from the moment the last ballot is cast and the first gets announced results.

“Any delay is usurped by oppositions. Data is transmitted using network route optimisation algorithms which often route through off-shore servers, which is a violation of digital sovereignty of the data” he said.
Another focus of his presentation was on explaining the meaning of social media electioneering and contactless elections which introduced computational or algorithmic propaganda.

Prof Thakur also looked at South Africa’s Election Bill of Materials (2014), commenting South Africa used 460 tonnes of paper in the election which is over 10 000 trees – a whole forest!

He therefore asserted “e-voting is not about technology – it is about democracy.”
“We must guard against an election becoming a census of those who vote,” he concluded.

Pictured: Professor Colin Thakur

Waheeda Peters

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