The Election Commission of Pakistan appears to have rejected outright the government’s desire to introduce electronic voting machines in the next election. However, while the ECP did provide a few solid reasons to reject EVMs, some of their 37 complaints looked more like attempts to pad the report. PTI leaders were also quick to catch on this. Science and Technology Minister Shibli Faraz said only 10 of the ECP’s objections related to the machines themselves, and that his ministry had already addressed all of them. However, Faraz also made a somewhat brash comment when asked about the apprehensions of foreign election experts. To clarify, Faraz, who has no background in machinery or technology, does not care about what actual experts have to say on the issue. PTI leaders have also failed to address why they are right, and all the governments that previously tried, tested, and failed EVMs are wrong.
At the same time, the ECP appeared to be blaming voting machines for its own historical failings. Some of the stranger points raised by the ECP related to low voter turnout, low women’s turnout, vote-buying, law and order, and political violence. None of these has anything to do with EVMs. The machines are not meant to raise voter turnout. The ECP and Parliament are. Preventing vote-buying is the job of Parliament, law enforcement, and the ECP. And unless the EVMs also double as Robocop, no one would expect them to address terrorism or political violence.
However, genuine concerns over voting remain. The government arranges hackathons to show that the machines are secure from malicious outside actors, but it is unlikely that they will ever be able to satisfactorily prove that they are secure from malicious ‘inside’ actors. Other valid issues such as the lack of ballot secrecy and the lack of capacity among election officers and others involved in the process have also not been fully addressed. Interestingly, one of the few areas where the government was willing to admit that the ECP’s objections were valid was internet voting, which PTI leaders have previously touted as a solution to grant overseas Pakistanis the right to vote. Even here, the ruling party has not addressed the long-running concerns of independent observers, including things as simple as voter registration and constituency allocation.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 10th, 2021.
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