Egypt will not use automated voting system for next election

Egypt's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, which is apparently in Smart Village, a PPP town on the outskirts of Cairo.

Al Ahram is now reporting that Egypt will not use an electronic voting system for the upcoming elections.

Egypt’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology Maged Othman announced in a press conference today that Egypt will not use electronic voting in the next presidential election.

Othman said electronic voting is currently too costly and requires extensive preparation to ensure the voting process is transparent and everyone is able to vote.

Othman also said Egypt will begin manufacturing the machines needed for electronic voting instead of importing them from overseas.

He added that currently the ministry is preparing the voting lists for the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections. The minister also said that Egyptians will be able to vote using their national ID cards both in Egypt and overseas and that Egyptian embassies will oversee the voting process outside of Egypt.

This seems like pretty good news all around.  The ability for expats to vote, in particular is more than feasible and there was no great reason not to do it. I previously expressed my doubts about an electronic election process, but that was mainly when I was unsure of whether internet voting was a potential.   I think Egypt is more than capable of a well-done automated election, but it takes time – more than a few months – to choose a system, ensure it works, train poll workers how to use, etc.

I’ve stated before that the debate over the merits of election technology is largely unimportant. Technology is a tool, not an independent actor. In most cases it amplifies intent; both deficiencies and capabilities become more apparent.  Whether Egypt ultimately decides to use automated machines or paper ballots is less important than how they decide to structure their Election Management Body, and how well they administer their elections.

Cross posted at Ahwa Talk

Egyptian government to introduce e-voting system, ensure future allegations of fraud

I’ve previously praised Estonia’s internet voting system, not so much for the concept (unnecessary) , but their execution.  Internet voting is fraught with challenges and Estonia has done an admirable job of creating a system that addresses them.   But it’s not easy to administer an e-voting system; Estonia had to rewrite laws and spend considerable effort to make theirs work.  So I got a little scared today when I read that Egypt was planning on introducing an electronic voting system for their upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections.

Electronic voting can mean both internet voting, or simply automated machines; it’s not clear what they are referring to here.  The mention of Egyptians overseas voting leads me to believe they are talking about internet voting, which would be a disaster.  This could, of course, simply mean automated voting, which would be slightly less of a disaster.   Indonesia, the Philippines and India are all examples of non-Western democracies that have implemented automated voting; the success of such programs is subjective, but generally acknowledged.   All of those processes, however, took considerable time to develop (not five months!).  While I have heard that India was advising Egypt on election administration, I find it hard to believe they would recommend moving to this system so quickly.

This leads me to believe they may actually be thinking about internet voting.   This actually might be better than an automated system, as it would not require buying thousands of machines (and training people how to use them).  Internet voting, however, is far from secure.  I would also think a high profile election like Egypt’s would attract top hacker talent  – some political, some bored teenagers – from around the world.  So don’t’ be surprised if internet votes make Ruby the next president of Egypt.

Something is a better message than nothing

Sam Tadros, MA in Democracy and Governance student, has some advice for helping his fellow Egyptian liberals improve the resonance of their message:

Because liberals have been obsessed with unity that lacks any meaningful ideological content, they’ve forgotten that they don’t really share many interests between themselves. They don’t share an economic outlook. They differ on social policies. They also differ on foreign policy. The only thing they have in common is what they are not. They are not Islamists. Note that, perhaps without anyone even noticing, this ends up framing the debate as one between Islamists and the rest. This is a losing debate for the liberals,-not because Egyptians are ignorant religious people who blindly obey their religious leaders, but because, given the choice between an incoherent political message and a coherent Islamist message, Egyptians will choose the latter.

In other words, you can’t beat something with nothing.

A better way to talk about social media?

Apropos of David’s recent post, I think that Mark Sedra offers a reasonable analysis of the role of social media in Egypt’s and Tunisia’s revolutions:

Facebook and Twitter certainly aren’t solely responsible for the growing wave of revolutionary ferment in the Arab world; pent-up frustrations had been bubbling for some time. But they helped to channel that frustration into action. The first major demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt were organized via Facebook and Twitter, with activist leaders directing followers where to congregate and how to avoid blockades. Those gatherings then snowballed, drawing in citizens from all walks of life.

Short version: Mediums don’t organize, but can help facilitate organization.

No one could have predicted this

I’ve heard this a lot over the past couple of weeks with regards to the revolution in Egypt; there is some truth to it.  On January 7th, I remember reading this article, which  used Egyptian humor to highlight the hopelessness that the country had become used to feeling.  I do think, however, that some of the talking heads have gone a little too far when they wonder why the experts couldn’t see this coming.

Events like this are nearly impossible to predict.   If they weren’t they probably wouldn’t happen, as it would be pretty easy for a regime to preemptively stamp out a revolution they knew was about to happen.  It is possible, though, to know when the conditions that can create social unrest are present.  On this, the experts didn’t miss anything.  Over the summer, the Economist published a special feature – which I consulted for on the election section!- on the current state of Egypt.  I think the cover and headline say it all.

In November, FRIDGE published a small report that predicted the potential for instability in the Middle East.  Among the key countries they noted as being particularly vulnerable were Tunisia and Egypt.

Due to age or sickness, a whole generation of strongmen leaders have been grooming their sons or close confidantes to replace them in due time to ensure the perpetuation of interests and power structures in the years to come. Among  them are many key Western allies the EU and US have so far relied upon. New leaderships in regional hubs such as Egypt could turn the West’s plans in the region upside down. A power struggle in one of the so-called bulwarks of stability such as Tunisia would add yet another problem to the region’s long list of hotspots.

In early January we knew that Egypt’s president was extremely old.  We knew his son was being groomed to replace him, despite how unpopular this was with the Egyptian public and the military.  We knew there were the rumblings of an internal power struggle between the military leadership and the new guard of the NDP.  We knew there was an election scheduled at the end of the summer, the fairness of which nobody had any illusions of.   We knew that neo-liberal economic policies had created a class of educated youth who had become quite vocal in their demands for more political freedom. We also knew that those same economic policies had led to inflation and reduction of subsudies that hurt the nearly forty percent of Egyptians living on less than two dollars a day.  We knew the gap in prosperity had gotten wider and that the wealthy, who once lived among the poor in mixed neighborhoods, had escaped to gated communities on the outskirts of the city.  We knew recent attacks on the Christian community had exposed fears of sectarian tension.

It’s true that nobody predicted a young Tunisian man would light himself on fire, causing a chain reaction of events that would lead to the overthrow of Ben Ali and Mubarak.   But the reason that man burned himself to death?  We’ve known that for some time.