Can e-voting improve the quality of elections in Africa?
Introduction
These days, elections have achieved a global presence, with only a handful of countries remaining without elected governments. Nevertheless, mounting concerns about whether the election results reflect the true wishes of the voters have become more pronounced.
In Africa, a noteworthy example of election challenges surfaced during Mozambique's municipal elections in October 2023. According to data from the National Elections Commission (CNE), a staggering 25% of municipalities witnessed blatant fraud, encompassing incidents such as ballot box stuffing and the stealing of opposition votes. The aftermath saw protests erupting across Mozambique, turning violent in the north with numerous arrests and even two reported casualties. In response, a judicial court mandated recounts for an entire municipality in the provincial capital, and the Council of Ministers approved the repetition of local elections in specific areas of four municipalities, which occurred on December 10th.
Beyond Mozambique’s borders, in Nigeria, thousands of opposition supporters protested the presidential election results in 2023, demanding a revote. Allegations were raised of voter intimidation, instances where people were denied the right to vote, and of delayed uploading of results from polling stations, allowing for potential vote tampering. These protests are not isolated incidents, countries like Algeria, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, and others across the continent have witnessed public discontent during recent elections.
At the heart of these challenges lie two fundamental issues: mistrust and inefficiency. Voters lack confidence that election managers will uphold fair play by adhering to rules that ensure an equal platform for all candidates and political parties, enabling citizens to participate freely and make choices without impediments. Additionally, inefficiency in the voting process is a common complaint, with voters expressing frustration over tedious, insecure, and time-consuming voting procedures. The slow and questionable tabulation of results and declaration of outcomes further compound these issues.
Advancements in technology have always improved efficiency and enabled the development of every industry. In the context of elections, more and more African countries are talking about the adoption of e-voting to mitigate some of these issues. This raises a critical question: objectively speaking, can technology, specifically e-voting, address these challenges and improve the quality of elections in Africa?
What is e-voting
E-voting, short for electronic voting, is a modernised electoral process that uses digital technology to enable citizens to cast their votes. E-voting technologies support one or more of the major phases of the electoral process, spanning from voter registration to voting and verification, and finally to counting or tallying the votes, and it is a vital contributor to e-democracy. E-democracy is defined as the use of information communication technology (ICT) by governments to improve the efficiency, equity, and quality of democratic participation.
E-voting encompasses a variety of methods, utilising both online and non-online machines, each carrying its distinct characteristics. Voting still occurs predominantly in traditional venues like polling places and precincts. In the realm of online-only methods, Remote Internet Voting emerges as a transformative approach, empowering voters to cast ballots conveniently from their homes or any location with internet access.
How e-voting works
Voter registration throughout the world is generally done electronically, and Africa is no exception. Biometric document is scanned or captured by the election official into the voters database, a photo of the voter is taken and the registration card is printed on the spot. The process goes smoothly without many hiccups and there are very few complaints besides the occasional long queues. E-voting has not been used beyond voter registration in the African continent with the exception of two countries. Namibia became the first in Africa to use electronic voting in their 2014 national elections and Kenya used an electronic system for counting votes in its 2017 and 2022 elections. In recent years, discussions and studies on the adoption of e-voting for voting and tallying in African countries, particularly in South Africa and Nigeria, have gained momentum. Currently there are two main ways to do this. Firstly, online voting, here the spotlight shines on Internet Voting Kiosks and other connected devices. These kiosks, equipped with user-friendly touchscreens, offer voters the convenience of casting their ballots online from specific locations. Secondly, offline voting, relying on stand alone Electronic Voting Machines. These machines, including Direct Recording Electronic systems, Ballot Marking Devices, and Optical Scan Machines, are designed for in-person voting at physical polling places.
Online e-voting as a solution for Africa
The reality of internet penetration
There are a few challenges with internet voting. Internet penetration in Africa is the lowest in the world at 43%, with Togo and the Central African Republic as low as 11.9% and 11.2% respectively, according to Internet World Stats for 2022. Sure, some countries like Kenya, Libya, Mauritius, Nigeria, Morocco, Seychelles, and Tunisia stand out with a higher national internet penetration factor. A country like Kenya, with 85.3% internet penetration, still grapples with a usage gap similar to the rest of the continent, meaning people may live beneath internet coverage but they cannot access the internet. The reasons for this are fourfold: they can’t afford a mobile phone; digital illiteracy; disconnection due to language barriers, and stigma. The latter comes from hearing of bad incidents happening on the internet and therefore being reserved about all things online, wanting to protect themselves and those vulnerable around them.
The security of transmitting votes electronically
The issue of transmitting the votes electronically over the internet to be counted at a central server introduces another layer of concern. Consider a private internet service provider (ISP) like TV Cabo, a multinational cable and telecommunications company that operates across Portugal, Mozambique, Angola and Cape Verde. In spite of these countries all being part of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), they have varying geopolitical interests, therefore entrusting TV Cabo with overseeing e-voting in Mozambique's upcoming 2024 presidential elections for instance would raise questions of neutrality. Moreover, the undisclosed location of servers, a common practice among private ISPs, adds to the lack of transparency, effectively killing the trustworthiness of internet transmission in e-voting. What about public ISPs? Publicly owned ISPs, like South Africa's Telkom and Kenya's Safaricom, pose their own set of challenges. With multiple shareholders holding conflicting interests, including government ownership, these ISPs become susceptible to manipulation. Picture a scenario where a small team of hackers, comfortably clad in their pyjamas thousands of kilometres away from where the election takes place, rig the elections with the backing of the ruling party. The Cambridge Analytica scandal in connection to the 2017 US presidential elections serves as a stark reminder of the risks associated with unregulated sharing of information. In this notorious incident, personal data from millions of Facebook users was acquired without proper consent and used to target and influence voters, demonstrating the potential misuse of digital platforms for political influence. If we consider the potential for manipulation in internet voting systems, the fallout from such an event could be catastrophic.
The elusiveness of Blockchain encryption
Blockchain technology is a complex end-to-end encryption method that when used in e-voting would ensure the secure transmission of ballots from voters' private devices to a centralised tabulation facility. Yet, critical vulnerabilities compromising the integrity and secrecy of the voting process happen before the ballots even reach the blockchain. The voter still has to interact with an interface to cast the vote. Instances where voters are coerced by family members or external pressure groups to vote in a manner contrary to their true intentions pose significant challenges. Additionally, blockchain technology also does not make servers and infrastructure more resistant to advanced persistent threats. These structures can still be rendered inoperable or exposed as information travels over the internet.
France, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, Spain, The United Kingdom, Finland have all planned to pilot or piloted but discontinued using internet voting due to security concerns. Whether we are talking about a regular internet connection or one with blockchain technology, the lack of security of internet voting is persistent. Universally, it is not the best option. While the stakes might not be high when you access your email or social media every day, the same cannot be said for e-voting in elections.
Offline e-voting as an alternative solution
Enhanced security and accessibility
Offline e-voting does not pose the security risks associated with online e-voting. In the case of Direct Recording Electronic voting machines, the voting is cast digitally and it’s kept in the machine. Similarly, Ballot Marking Devices enable digital casting of votes, with the marked ballot printed on paper for confirmation and submission. Visually, the digital interface of these machines can be designed to look virtually identical to the paper ballot, making them intuitive to use. Operating primarily offline, Optical Scan Machines scan and tabulate paper ballots without the need for the middleman nor internet connectivity.
Additionally, the software running on these machines plays a crucial role in independent auditing. Those machines that run on open source software mean that the code can be audited by independent auditors for vulnerabilities. This added layer of impartiality could potentially help forge more trust by voters.
Apart from the security benefits, these offline voting systems excel in user feedback mechanisms and accessibility. For instance, Ballot Marking Devices assist voters in accurately marking their choices. These machines help users recognize and recover from errors, in cases of mismarked or spoiled ballots, these machines give an error message usually through a red alert and/or an audio feedback. By the same token, a successful vote is given a green checkmark and/or an audio feedback confirming success. Adjustments can be made to the text size, colours, and voters can vote in different languages which helps to solve the language barrier problem. All of this brings about a level of accessibility that manual ballots do not have, helping in improving the participation disabled people as well as less educated people.
The literacy factor
Offline e-voting machines sound like a great alternative to manual ballots. Until you take a closer look at the reality of the African continent. No country in Africa has yet achieved the Millenium Development Goal of universal primary education. According to the World Bank, in 2022 adult male and adult female literacy rates in Africa average at 74% and 61%, respectively. Although not disastrous, these numbers are still far from the target. Notably, across the continent female literacy is lower than male literacy. Looking at the numbers closely for adult females, it is a handful of countries that elevate this average percentage, Zimbabwe, Seychelles, São Tomé and Principe, Namibia, Lesotho, and Equatorial Guinea all have above 90% female literacy. On the flip side, 14 countries grapple with less than 50% female literacy, with Mali and Chad as low as 22% and 19%, respectively. Successful voting requires a level of literacy and engagement from the entire electorate, period.
And that is just literacy, when considering digital literacy those numbers are universally lower. A significant digital divide exists within African nations, especially between urban and rural communities, as well as among the elderly and the younger generations. The youth, particularly in urban settings have embraced technology as they use smartphones and laptops as communication and business tools. But keep in mind that a large population in African countries live in rural communities. We cannot expect them to leave their rural homes, go to a precinct or polling station and correctly use a machine, even if the display looks almost exactly like a manual ballot. They will be overwhelmed.
Power outages and computer failure
There was a power outage during the 2023 Mozambican municipal elections, allegedly leading to ballot stuffing. Power cuts are common in many African countries, South Africa even gave their own power cuts a name - load shedding. A power cut during e-voting would cause delays, frustration and money losses.
Also, the looming possibility of computer failure casts a shadow. Kenya faced this predicament in the 2017 presidential elections. During the elections the computer system set up to verify voters and remit results to the national tally centre in Nairobi failed, leaving the country in electoral limbo for days and ultimately forcing the election commission to revert to a manual count. Ordinarily, in a typical African country when seeking services, in banks and mobile stores for instance, the system is periodically down and the only excuse the teller has is “the system is out”. Now imagine the embarrassment and frustration of experiencing a “system out” during an election, Kenya knows this well, it’s a cautionary tale.
Counting the votes
What approach could be used for tallying the votes? Centralised tallying? That would mean taking hundreds of large and heavy machines across a province or entire country to a centralised place for counting. Impractical. Alternatively, the results could be saved onto a small external device such as a USB pen drive and taken to the central place for counting. While it may sound feasible, a USB stick is vulnerable—it can be easily damaged, lost, stolen, or manipulated—making this approach impractical as well. How about decentralised tallying? In this approach votes are tallied at each precinct or polling station, avoiding the costs and mitigating the risk of transporting the machines or external devices. Optical Scan Machines adopt this method, but they fail to address the issue of voter trust. It remains an election official's responsibility to place the ballots onto the Optical Scan Machine. The margin for manipulation remains. Given their history of voter fraud allegations, election officials responsible for counting manual ballots are not trusted by voters. When combined with the general public's misunderstanding of machines, their handling of the machines creates an even bigger trust hurdle.
How do we get the voter to trust that the correct software is installed in the machine that they are using? Merely adding a sign such as a check sign would be meaningless to most voters and even the voters who understand may question whether the check signs could be forged.
Usually these machines have ports to connect to peripheral devices. In an election setting these ports would be protected by tamper-evident seals and security software to detect and prevent unauthorised access. But even this isn’t foolproof. Voting tech is tested every year in the United States at Def con, one of the world’s largest hacker conventions and hackers always manage to change the ballots displayed or alter the stored vote tallies. Even a non-tech savvy voter could put a dent in the system, it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine a voter bent on sabotage placing a USB stick next to a machine and taking a photo with a sneaked-in cellphone inside the polling station. If that photo went viral on social media, it could cast serious doubts on the trustworthiness of these e-voting machines.
The cost of digital technologies
Running the numbers, Mozambique’s 2023 municipal elections cost a reported $219,780,180. Nigeria’s 2023 general elections budgeted $396,618,990, and Kenya’s 2022 general elections $300,296,000. Though exact numbers are unavailable, a rough estimate suggests there were around 33,000 polling stations and precincts in Kenya. Assuming each station had two Electronic Voting Machines similar to Direct Recording Electronic systems, the potential cost could surpass $23 million for the machines alone, considering an estimated cost of $3,500 per machine. A high-speed Optical Scan Machine is even more expensive, costing around $25,000. Additional expenses include other election equipment, licensing costs for software, as well as the payment of experts and consultants from abroad for system setup. Not to mention the import costs, ironically, the essential raw materials needed to produce these technologies are sourced from Africa but the finished product is from overseas.
The cost of e-voting equipment for voting and possibly tallying would be millions of dollars. Election technologies to facilitate voter registration and transmission of results are already a major component of foreign aid and trade for Africa. Digital election technology is purchased at exorbitant prices from producing countries. The cost is increased by unfavourable exchange rates and corruption. With all of this in mind, it can be gathered that these e-voting technologies do not have enough benefits to outweigh the costs.
Closing thoughts
The adoption and implementation of e-voting technologies in major elections pose significant challenges, regardless of the location. Manual ballot voting, although imperfect, has stood the test of time. While fraud may occur in traditional manual ballot elections, orchestrating it on a national level requires considerable resources. In contrast, e-voting systems are more vulnerable; a lone hacker or a corrupt government backing a group of hackers could easily manipulate votes, and a single confession could unravel the entire system.
While technology, when properly utilised, can enhance voting efficiency, low trust in election officials and inadequate infrastructure, especially in Africa, act as substantial barriers to e-democracy.
Using e-voting technology for voter registration and results transmission undoubtedly enhances the efficiency of elections; however, that is as far as the practicality of e-voting goes. Simultaneous efforts must focus on strengthening independent election observation mechanisms, implementing anti-corruption measures, and international collaboration and support for electoral processes. These actions, along with the influence of Civil Society Organisations in election monitoring and in educating voters, can collectively contribute to building a resilient, transparent, and trustworthy electoral process in Africa.
Corruption and inefficiency are deep-rooted systematic issues that technology alone cannot resolve. They are socio-political problems that require comprehensive solutions. The swamp needs to be drained manually, replacing the murky waters tainted by corruption and inefficiency with a fresh, transparent reservoir of dedicated and incorruptible individuals committed to upholding the principles of good governance and fairness in our electoral processes. Only if these conditions are met will the quality of elections in Africa improve.
