The future of e-voting in South Africa: Opportunities and challenges

An illustration of an e-voting machine.
Image: IOL / Ron AI
Although the powers that be are exploring electronic voting (e-voting), its implementation in South Africa cannot be expected anytime soon.
E-voting embraces electronic means of casting votes and counting them.
University of South Africa (UNISA) distinguished professor at the College of Science, Engineering and Technology, Professor Colin Thakur, said a voting machine is a specialised type of computer. Therefore, normal computers and smartphones cannot be used.
He said issues regarding an election include vote secrecy, vote security, transparency, ease of voting, speed and efficiency of counting, and effect on voter turnout and equity of access.
'When we press a button, we expect privacy, we expect security, we expect verification, we expect,' Thakur said about e-voting.
He said paper was slowly losing its gold standard stature because of the logistics of moving 90 million pieces of paper from the central location to the voting districts and then the reversal logistics.
Additionally, instances of 'lost' ballot boxes can cause danger by creating a lingering doubt.
Thakur said the other challenge lies with ballot tabulation, which includes undercounting, overvoting, and none of the above (NOTA).
'One thing paper does that machine doesn't do is, you can spoil your ballot paper,' Thakur said.
Why e-voting?
Thakur said modern devices are becoming more intuitive and they mitigate mobility, illiteracy, people with disabilities (PWDs) challenges and the elderly.
E-voting is quicker and more accurate for vote tallying and announcements.
You can ask electorate-focused questions or percentage-type questions.
'E-voting machines can be used to decide a national non-political question not affecting the Constitution, or be used to gauge if the government has enough public support to go ahead with a proposed action,' Thakur said.
He said e-voting is useful in a fragile, transitional, or a government of national unity democracy.
Additionally, national, provincial, and local elections can be held simultaneously and can be cheaper too.
Election hacking
He said theoretically, things like ransomware, denial of service attacks, latency, 404ed! Page not found and Eskom can happen. However, most hacks happen in the lab and not on-site or during elections.
However, he stated that no technology is insulated from misappropriation. Radio signal interception is possible.
He said hacking needs sustained access to the e-voting machine.
'On voting day, there is no Wi-Fi, no Bluetooth, there's no connectivity, the machine is isolated from the world. So, how do you hack a machine that's secure?'
Thakur stated that to secure the vote, there are zero-knowledge proofs, homomorphic encryption, mix networks, blockchain, and a voter-verified paper audit trail.
He highlighted that e-voting is adopted in a stable, non-violent political climate; fragile or transitional democracy; multi-party democracy with two dominant parties; coalition government; large populations; a level of technical maturity; illiteracy is not seen as a setback; and a mixed economy.
E-voting strengths, opportunities, and advantages
Thakur said e-voting is fast, accurate, and gives an unemotional count. It also has multilingualism.
He said e-voting helps PWDs, the elderly, and illiterate voters through images, audio, graphics, symbols, and speech-to-text touchscreens.
It also provides additional voting options.
He added that human error is reduced by automated transmission and tabulation of errors.
Thakur said electronic transmission is the last thing that happens, and it is important because of denial of service attacks, ransomware, and man-in-the-middle interception. However, blockchain can mediate this challenge.
He said if the IEC decides to pilot or trial e-voting, then the legislation process must start, but information dissemination must start immediately.
'E-voting is not about technology - it's about democracy. We must guard against an election becoming a census of those who vote,' Thakur said.
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