AFRICA REPORT
Namibia spent a reported N$10
million on the venture - a staggering
amount by any measure. The device
itself is built and distributed by Indian
company Barat Electronic Limited in
Bangalore and has been successfully
used in a number of countries around
the world
Perhaps the biggest problem with
voting is the amount of time it takes.
Besides the long wait to make your
mark, there’s ballot counting, recounts,
issues with lost votes and then some.
For many, voting is more trouble than
it’s worth. And this, as we should all
know, is far from encouraging.
The issue of time and in some ways,
comfort, has been a factor that many
countries around the world have
sought to address. And what better
way to do this than the implementation
of a voting system, truly reflective
of our digital age. This, friends and
fellow voters, is what is known as the
Electronic Voting Machine (EVM).
The pursuit of efficiency when counting
1.2 million votes is what drove
Namibia to use this system in their
5th democratic election since gaining
independence. The EVM is set to
change everything for the better and
yet this huge leap forward is still met
with cynicism and ignorance.
IMBO/ ISSUE 32/ '14
As expected, there were a number
of skeptics, many originating from
opposition parties (no surprise there).
The naysayers even went so far as
to challenge the credibility of the
machines in court. This may very well
be because people are usually if not
always frightened by anything new
and different.
Barat Electronic Limited was quick to
defend their creation. To those who
feared tampering with results, the
Indian company insisted the devices
had been used for years without any
reported rigging or manipulation. The
machine can only be programmed
once and operates on a secure, offline database. This makes it relatively
immune to being influenced by even
the most prodigious of hackers.
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