The introduction of an electronic vote counting system in the last European Parliament and local councils’ election was heralded as a late entry into the world of digitalisation of the electoral system. The Electoral Commission adopted a cautious strategy by limiting the change to the counting of votes.
The system was sold to the public and to the political parties on promises that the counting of first preference votes would be much speedier, saving thousands of people from the anxiety of long hours of waiting to see which party had won the elections. Initially, the Nationalist Party had shown reservations about the accuracy of the results produced by the new system in trial runs of vote counting. The Electoral Commission could have done much better in explaining the causes of the discrepancies that cropped up in the pilot runs.
On the Sunday morning following the elections, many expected to tune in to their radio or TV and have a good indication of who had won the elections. The political parties did not discard their trusted sampling system based on manual and basic electronic gadgets to come up with a projection of the results.
They were proven right, even if the gap between the two larger parties in the European elections was at one point thought to be wider than it really was. This was due to discrepancies in the sampling method due to changes introduced by the Electoral Commission that were not taken into consideration. But they were right in declaring Labour had made a resounding victory.
True, the Electoral Commission was bound by EU demands not to publish any results before Sunday evening but when it released figures, they were far from reliable. Embarrassingly corrected figures of first preference calculations, overall voters’ participation and turnouts in particular localities had to be published almost continuously.
There is an almost universal resistance to the acceptance of untested electronic systems by many, especially older people. However, once a system based on technology proves to be reliable, people usually embrace it without further hesitation. What happened at the Naxxar counting hall is not likely to contribute to the chosen electronic system to enjoy the sort of trust required in such a delicate and sensitive electoral process.
Still, the problems encountered should not be an argument to discard the modernisation of the vote counting system. Every effort should be made to make any programming changes that may be needed to make it more reliable, accurate and speedy.
The time between now and the next electoral test should be used to enhance the system and make it more reliable. It is also essential that both the Electoral Commission and the service provider inform both the political parties and the public exactly what happened and what is being done to rectify the situation. This needs to be done as soon as possible.
The technology to convert our complex voting system from a manual to an electronic one already exists. However, before the hurdle of a reliable electronic vote counting system is overcome, there is no point in considering introducing a proper digitalised voting system.
Like in any application of information technology, the mistrust barrier to accepting new, more efficient ways of doing things will always prove to be the most difficult to overcome.
This is a Times of Malta print editorial