As South Africa toys with the idea of e-voting, a professor from the University of South Africa (Unisa) who has been looking at the possibility of e-voting in South Africa has warned about the pros and cons of the process in the country.
Professor Colin Thakur from Unisa’s college of science, engineering and technology, gave examples. He said some countries like the Netherlands in Europe tried e-voting and later abandoned it. Namibia next door had some challenges with it, and it was dropped.
Thakur was presenting in Durban on Thursday during a workshop organised by the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) for civic organisations and others to meet and debate the idea.
Pilot project
He suggested that the process of e-voting could be piloted during voting for smaller structures. These include school governing bodies and student representative councils in institutions of higher learning. The findings can later be used in the provincial and national elections as well as in local government elections.
Among the advantages of e-voting, Thakur listed that it is quicker and accurate. This is set to make vote tallying and results announcement faster. He added that e-voting can be useful in fragile democracies like Venezuela and the Philippines. Made up of several small islands, it becomes cumbersome for the country to move ballot papers around after counting. This is where e-voting can work.
Another e-voting advantage for South Africa was that it can hold simultaneous elections at a go. This has also worked in places like the Philippines.
Voter controlling
However, Thakur warned about the disadvantages. One of them is that some voters could be coerced to vote in a certain way which is against their will. He made an example of a powerful husband standing behind his wife. He wanted to ensure that she votes according to his wishes. This takes away the right to secret voting and voting for preferred party or candidate.
Another disadvantage was that e-voting could be open to cyber attacks and interception by a middleman. And this can compromise the entire process.
