Are EVMs a Good Idea?

 

Much hue and cry has been made regarding the joint session of the parliament where the government bulldozed proceedings of the parliament in five hours, passing 33 bills. The main bill in this regard was about the conduct of elections through electronic voting machines. Known as Elections (Second Amendment) Act, 2021, it amended section 103 of Act XXXIII of 2017, stating, "Electronic voting. -The Election Commission of Pakistan shall procure electronic voting machines (EVMs) for the casting of votes in general elections." The main reason for the bill as stated by the advisor to PM on parliamentary affairs, Mr. Babar Awan, was to make the elections free, fair, and transparent. Opposition was firmly against the bill, saying that this is nothing but a tool by the government to rig the elections more easily.

But unfortunately, in Pakistan, little to no research has been carried out with respect to the relevant topic and neither did the government allow for a good debate upon this. Hence, the masses didn't know much about the subject. As this is a first of its kind in Pakistan, so we go outside the country to know about it. Numerous developed countries have tried to shift to electronic voting, but serious questions concerning its transparency and fairness compelled them to go old school. The main difference between Pakistan and those countries is that Pakistan wants to make a shift through a 100m race which is a marathon. The result would probably be getting tired after 100m with no way in-sight:) however, other countries followed a gradual process; they did have a way back. For example, Germany tested electronic voting machines (EVMs) at some polling stations in local elections at Cologne city in 1998. Then in 1999, all voting in Cologne was carried out through EVMs. This gradual increase continued till 2005, when about 2 million votes were cast through EVMs. This was stopped in 2009 following a decision by the German Constitutional Court ruling that although no errors were witnessed in the previous elections but because the system remained vulnerable to attacks, hence until and unless such arrangements are not made to secure it completely, these EVMs should not be used. The Netherlands also gave a negative signal to EVMs in 2008, hinting at privacy and security issues, and if they were to cover up those issues, it would become too costly. In Norway, the trials were stopped in 2013, which started in 2011. They cited two big problems. First, while voting from home or any other place but not a polling booth, the voters are under outside influences, and the vote may not present their true will. The second problem they faced was that a tiny number of people cast their vote twice, i.e., after casting their votes through EVMs, they went to physical polling stations and cast their votes through paper ballots. So, one thing becomes clear that even a gradual process also has its own set of cons. The biggest lessons in this regard can be learned from Ireland, which spent 54 million euros on the process, but then had to sell the machines in scrape for 70000 euros after its failure.

More problems concerning this issue will be hacking threats to the software installed in the machine, electricity to be provided around the clock, and the enormous costs related to this whole process (an estimate suggests there will be a need for 0.8 million machines). India seems to be the only country that has shifted to Electronic Voting Machines, but they have followed a slow process through 37 years from 1982 to 2019. In 1982, EVMs were used for the first time in a by-election of North Paravur Assembly constituency in Kerala for a small number of polling stations. The scope was then extended to selected constituencies of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Delhi. After this successful test, EVMs were developed by the Election Commission of India in collaboration with Bharat Electronics Ltd. In 1989. Goa became the first state to use it throughout for a general election when it employed EVMs for election to Goa Assembly in 1999. After getting favorable results from these, Election Commission decided to use EVMs in all by-elections and state elections in 2003 and then for elections to Lok Sabha (Lower House of the Parliament) in 2004. The main problem with all electronic products is that although we give them the command, whether the task was completed by them or not remains the question. Furthermore, if some ^third party tried to invade and did not let them complete the task, for this purpose, India introduced Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT). The purpose of this was to provide the voters with feedback on whether their vote was casted successfully or not. So, the system working as a printer is attached to an EVM and hence a print can be generated after casting vote which mentions the name of the candidate he voted for and his election symbol. This has also been used to resolve disputes that arise in counting votes after the election. For example, if any candidate objects to the counting, the returning officer can verify the number of votes cast through VVPAT. This was used for the first time in the Noksen constituency of Nagaland province in 2013, then used in one-quarter of seats for election to Mizoram legislative assembly in the same year. For general elections to Lok Sabha, this was employed for the first time in 2014, when 8 out of 543 constituencies got this facility. Goa became the first state in this system too to implement it in all constituencies for 2017 elections to Goa Assembly. This was then extended to the whole of India in elections to Lok Sabha in 2019. India has done all this very smoothly and has not encountered serious problems due to their limited use of the technology. Although they did shift to EVMs, they did not shift to Internet Voting, which would have been more prone to malware, hacking, and phishing attempts. If you were to secure those, the cost of elections goes up. And if you want to go with these old school machines, the process remains slow as we see elections in India are spread over six weeks (the machine has a limit of vote casting). This long process makes the opinion of people more susceptible to be attacked. Hence, more security is needed, which again gets us into a complex situation.

Wrapping it up, EVM is not a magical wand that will make things right in a blink of an eye. Firstly, the government should not change to EVMs, as it will be a burden on the already crippled economy. Moreover, as the system of paper ballots has been in place for a lot of time, efforts should be made to bring out improvements in that. In addition to this, if the government do wants to change to EVMs, keeping in mind the seriousness and sensitiveness of matter in mind, a well-thought-out policy is required to be prepared by people who hold high knowledge and experience, which is another difficult task. But merely passing a bill of two lines doesn't improve the process rather it will be making things more difficult for us.