ECN promises 'watertight results'

Despite persistent misgivings about the efficacy of electronic voting machines (EVMs) amongst political parties and voters alike, the Election Commission of Namibia (ECN) is adamant that the machines will deliver credible and watertight results in the upcoming presidential and National Assembly elections. EVMs will again be used without a voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) this year, which opposition parties are unhappy about.ECN chief electoral and referenda officer Theo Mujoro said the fact that the VVPAT technology will not be rolled out for the elections is not because of cost considerations. “The consideration was around technical issues regarding the version of VVPAT we have seen. We noted a number of glitches,” Mujoro said last week. The VVPAT has to be linked to the control and ballot units, but Mujoro said the ECN has noticed instances in the prototype where the units could not communicate with the VVPAT. “There were such situations and that was not a good thing to see,” Mujoro said. Secondly, he said, paper jams would occur after voters have cast their votes.“When a paper jam occurs, it would require the intervention of other individuals, and if that happens, the secrecy of the vote could be compromised,” Mujoro said. Another instance observed in the Indian experience, he said, was that some voters “for one or the other reason” caused a scene and claimed that what was printed out was not what they voted for. “There are a number of situations that we have carefully assessed, and based on that, we have decided that it would not be appropriate. It is not the right time for Namibia to be able to introduce VVPAT technologies until some of those issues are ironed out,” Mujoro said. EVMs have paper trail functionalityMujoro was at great pains to point out that the EVMs used in Namibia in fact do have a paper trail functionality. “What this means is that if the results generated by a particular machine at any given polling station are disputed for one reason or the other, any competent court can order the ECN to produce a printout, in other words a paper trail that would clearly show how votes were cast on that particular machine,” he emphasised. This functionality clearly points which presidential or National Assembly candidates were voted for.“People tend to say we do not have a paper trail and they do not like the EVMs. That is incorrect and that is misinformation. Our EVMs have a paper trail functionality, but we have said for now we will not be able to roll out the VVPAT technology alongside the EVMs.” Handling of votes Mujoro explained that once polling stations close at 21:00 in the evening on 27 November, the result of all votes cast on a particular EVM will be generated when the result button on the control unit is pressed. Once this process is completed, the control unit is connected to a printer to print out the results. The results at each polling station have to be signed off by political party agents and are printed out in triplicate.One copy of the results is then pasted on the outside of the polling station, another is taken by the presiding officer (the electoral leader at every polling station) and the third copy is handed to the returning officer (head of each constituency).The returning officer then collates all the votes from all polling stations in a particular constituency to produce consolidated results.These results are then transmitted through to the central election results centre in Windhoek at the ECN's head office, where all results from across the country are collated before being announced to the nation. MTC Mujoro said the ECN will use MTC's services to transmit the results from the close to 2 400 polling stations to the 121 collation centres in all constituencies, and then on to the central results centre.“We have enough experience and we have learnt hard lessons, especially from the 2014 experience. With this wealth of knowledge, we do not expect to be sitting with the same challenges again. We have noted that MTC has expanded its coverage over the last five years,” Mujoro said.“There is no way in hell that anybody can try to intercept our results during the transmission process, just forget about that. Even if someone tries to do that, there are other layers and levels that will allow the detection of any such attempt.”Mujoro said a secure transmission channel will be developed for the transmission of the results.“It is a watertight system and we will try the best we can to demonstrate this transparency and openness to our political parties,” he said.“I have no doubt there will be full integrity in terms of the systems we will deploy and no one should be worried about anything.” CATHERINE SASMAN

ECN promises 'watertight results'

Comments

Namibian Sun 2025-09-18

Please login to leave a comment

ECN promises 'watertight results'

Comments

Namibian Sun 2025-09-18

Please login to leave a comment

Login