Can mobile phones be used for voting?

It is one year down the line since the IEBC electronic results transmission system crumbled at the hour of need. It is less than four years before we call upon IEBC to stage its act again – perhaps better than last time. So it is not too early to start thinking about automating the next general elections.

Indeed at the recent cabinet retreat in Nanyuki, the cabinet secretary for ICT, Dr. Matiang'i did mention that the government would be keen to support IEBC in fully automating the electoral process. What failed electronically last year is actually a small component of what would otherwise be termed a fully automated electoral process.

The key components that could be automated were discussed in a previous article and included:-voter registration, voter verification, actual voting, voter tallying and finally results transmission. In the last general election, actual voting was done manually while the issues surrounding the rest of the components became the subject of the Presidential petition that ensued.

“BETWEEN DENIAL AND DEFIANCE”

Whereas the Supreme Court was satisfied that the outcome was not materially affected by the electronic hiccups experienced by IEBC, a significant percentage of Kenyans remain stuck between denial and defiance of the Supreme Court ruling.

Nevertheless, Kenyans on both side of the political divide seem to agree that had the electronic process been smoothly executed, the resulting higher degree of confidence in the results would have made the need for a presidential petition null and void if not outright ridiculous.

So how will the general election process look like in 2017?

Kenyans should not leave this debate entirely to the IEBC. Worse still, they should not wait until 2017 to start the discussions. We must engage IEBC on this question starting from now so that by 2017, every stakeholder is clear and agreed on when and how they will vote.

The constitution clearly specifies the when, so we are left with the how. IEBC is at liberty to use any means to administer the elections as long as the process can be proved to be transparent, accurate, verifiable and secure.

These conditions are easier said than done – particularly where manual systems are concerned. However, this is not the same as saying that electronic systems are not without opportunity for mischief; electronic systems simply raise the bar for mischief and make it slightly more difficult to cheat the system.

MOBILE PHONE VOTING

So which electronic voting systems should we adopt?

The Cabinet secretary for ICT envisions Kenyans voting through the internet in 2017. Whereas internet voting systems have been around and are well-tested globally, the question is not whether all eligible voters would be online by 2017, but also comfortably online enough to effectively vote.

A better option would be to develop a voting system through mobile phones. With close to 80 per cent of the Kenyan population using mobile phones, and over 60 per cent trading on them, mobile phone voting would be a perfect fit for the Kenyan electorate.

Either way, it would be nice to have both options – Internet Voting and Mobile phone Voting. Voting from the comfort of your house would remove the push for IEBC to stagger the elections over two days or two periods.

Let’s get some universities and the mobile communication sector working together on some local innovation around mobile phone voting that could eventually be patented and exported to the outside world. It may not be easy given the stringent requirements of transparency, accuracy, verification and security for a credible election – but with collaboration between the stakeholders it should be achievable.

Mr Walubengo is a lecturer at the Multimedia University of Kenya, Faculty of Computing and IT. Twitter : @jwalu