Ballot Box - End of the Road? (Billy Alexander)

Imagine if all voting was done electronically? No more ballot papers to run out of. No more ballot boxes to be over-filled by oversized ballot sheets. No more ballot box stuffing, in the real sense. Almost immediate feedback of results. Sounds almost too good to be true. To do this would require that the population be re-educated in the voting process as well as an understanding of the technology. More importantly, they will need to gain a level of trust in the new systems.

Most of this article was written on 23 April 2009, the day after the elections, but publishing was delayed until today. In the meantime, I see that Chris Moerdyk at News24 has written a little more tongue in cheek article about using ATMs (Automatic Teller Machines) as the voting device (and got the usual bunch of ridiculime (ridiculous-to-sublime) comments from his readers). His readers were generally against the idea of e-voting, with fraud and cost being the main concerns.

Interestingly, a little research shows that electronic voting is not all that widespread geographically. But a lot of people do vote electronically because India (the world’s largest democracy – 700 million voters) and Brazil (just under 100 million voters) use e-voting for all levels of government. Even in the most technology advanced of countries the use e-voting is not all that extensive and only done in pockets.

The biggest change will be on how the political parties conduct their election campaigns. The next election should be a struggle for the cellphones and PCs of the electorate. This is the way that people are going to be receiving their information in the future. The politicians need to embracing this now, within the constraints of the South Africa telecom environment. Television, radio and newspaper will still have their roles, but as part of more comprehensive media campaign which includes the newer channels.

Broadband 4 Africa - Don't forget to sign their petition on their website.

To encourage the adoption of the internet by all South Africans, the government will have to play a leading role. More government services need to be made available electronically via the internet, cellphone or other portable electronic devices. By making these services simple to use, affordable, and by leaving the manual processes cumbersome and non-user-friendly, citizens will not have an excuse not to use the internet.

Most South Africans own at least one cellphone. And the older cellphones seemed to be cycled out of the system every couple of years. That means that the population of cellphones in 5 years time should have at least the functionality of the best cellphones available today. All internet, MMS, video and messaging functions that make the internet useful and accessible today could be in the hands of almost every South African by 2014.

With this platform in place, it becomes Education, Education, Education. Access leads to new sources of information which will change the national debate about politics completely. The worlds best democracies have always had good and free access to information.

Who knows who will be the new government in 2014?