Africa-Press – Namibia. THE IRONY seems lost on the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN), which recently announced an ambitious strategic plan that everything it does henceforth would be supported by “digitally innovative” election processes and data systems.
In the same breath, the ECN took a step backwards in that for the next five years all elections (national and presidential in 2024, local and regional in 2025, as well as by-elections) would be conducted using paper ballots.
While ECN chairperson Elsie Nghikembua said the election controlling body has not given up on reintroducing electronic voting, she was clear it was unlikely to happen within the next five years.
“Until such a time that we are satisfied as a commission that we have a product that is able to deliver credible elections, we are not going to introduce electronic voting. The commission is still investigating the possibilities of electronic voting, but for this strategic period we are going to use ballot papers,” Nghikembua was reported as saying.
Such pronouncements beg the question how the strategic plan would be realised to turn the ECN into a “modern electoral management body supported by robust and innovative electoral management processes …”.
It is understandable that the ECN could not continue using its existing electronic voting machines (EVMs) following the Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling that the system did not meet the requirements for credible elections.
That system, bought from India at a cost of about N$60 million in 2014, lacked the crucial element of an independently verifiable voter trail.
At the time, the ECN ignored warnings and even a 2013 judgement by India’s supreme court that a voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) was an “indispensable requirement of free and fair elections”.
It is a pity that the ECN now seems intent on throwing the baby out with the bathwater by returning to a ballot paper voting process, which is rife with mistakes, logistical nightmares, and is easily susceptible to manipulation.
In fact, it is not only at the voting end where the ECN has failed to step into the modern world of digital technologies and innovation.
The current voters’ register is just as steeped in old ways. Since its establishment, the ECN has struggled to provide the general public with an easily accessible voters’ register for verification.
We can only hope that this time the strategic plan would be fulfilled so that the ECN ties the voters’ register to the national identification system run by the home affairs ministry.
It is preposterous that the ECN is crying to be given ‘independence’ to run operations such as purchasing decisions, while it can’t fulfil basic functions core to credible elections.
In this modern age, how can ECN leaders be comfortable with a law that allows someone to become a Namibian voter simply through two ‘sworn affidavits’, declarations often made by village headmen and church preachers?
That is a major loophole for vote manipulation and outright rigging.
How easy would it not be to have Angolan, Zambian, Zimbabwean, Botswana and South African citizens sneak onto the Namibian voters’ roll with mere sworn affidavits?
What’s also ironic is that people who were not born here but have lived in Namibia since before independence cannot, for instance, access welfare programmes and state jobs because they don’t have national identity documents.
It is easier to be registered to vote.
If the ECN really wants to step into the modern era of digital technology, it needs to revamp its culture: Voter education must become a regular process using all technologies, voter registration should be linked to national ID systems and be accessible to anyone, sworn affidavits must be done away with, and elections must be planned in advance rather than being the scramble the ECN has become accustomed to.
In the absence of proactive steps, the ECN will continue to be mired in accusations of bias, and will continue to lose court cases without learning key lessons.
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