voter

advocates, Africa, ID, Uganda, voter

Delays threaten Uganda National ID and Voter Registration System

Uganda: Govt to Delay National ID Project Again (All Africa)

“We are all concerned about the IDs. We have written to the ministry of finance pleading. We have put pressure for additional funds but maybe the resource envelope is small. We shall try to work within what was given and try a phased approach,” Onek resignedly said.

In 2010 government signed a 64m Euros (sh205b) agreement with Muehlbauer High Tech International for the supply of equipment and provision of training services. The goal was to set up a biometric register upon which the issuance of ID cards and numbers will be based under the National Security Information System (NSIS) Project. The government has paid Muehlbauer 51m (163b) Euros and owes them 13m Euros (sh42b).

The Electoral Commission has also expressed concerns about the effect of delay of implementation of the Project on the commission’s continuous by-elections and general elections of 2016.

elections, Kenya, vote, voter

More on Kenya Election Budget Requests

Following up on yesterday’s post: How much should an election cost?

IEBC Scratching Head Over Sh17 Billion Poll Budget (All Africa)

Nairobi, Kenya — The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) is now seeking to borrow resources from countries within the East African Community (EAC) region in a bid to reduce its budget and work within the Sh17.5 billion limit allocated by the Treasury.

Chairman Isaack Hassan said on Monday that the commission will be looking to acquire biometric voter registration equipment and technological know how from its East African counterparts.

He added that negotiations with the Treasury to revise the budget upwards were still ongoing as the commission seeks to reduce its initial budget of Sh40 billion cut back on other costs.

Source: CIA World Factbook – Kenya
Source: xe.com

Like we said yesterday, Sh40 billion seems like a lot, but a lot of human resources, communications, training, etc. goes into elections. A good technology infrastructure for biometric enrollment and biometric verification bought new and custom designed for Kenya, would not come anywhere close to accounting for the gap between the IEBC budget request and the funds allocated by the Treasury of Kenya.

elections, Kenya, vote, voter

How much should an election cost?

Kenya: Lavish Spending in Poll Budget (All Africa)

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission budget for the next general elections proposes spending at least Sh3,000 ($35.25) on each of the estimated 18 million voters who will participate in the next election.

This is just one of the expenses listed in the Sh35 billion budget that the IEBC is asking taxpayers to finance. If the proposed budget is granted, it would make the next elections the most expensive ever held in any stable democracy in the world. Post conflict election budget benchmark is pegged at between $10 and $30 (Sh850 and Sh2,550) per person. India, considered one of the world’s largest democracies spent $1 (Sh85) on each of its 600 million voters.

Kenya’s next general election would therefore be the most expensive poll exercise ever conducted on earth. The IEBC is asking for another Sh35 billion in addition to the Sh7.5 bn already allocated making a grand total of Sh42.5 billion.

A lot goes into an election: poll worker training, communication with the electorate, printing, transportation, registration, etc. What an election costs will depend upon how much work from the past can be reused for in the present.

Still, $35.25 per voter does seem pretty expensive. Granted, it’s not the $40 per voter floated by Zimbabwe in 2011.

Ghana, ID, vote, voter

Ghana Wrapping Up Biometric Voter Enrollment

Mop Up Biometric Registration In Eight Regions (Daily Graphic)

He explained that the mop up had become necessary at some of the areas because during the registration, either the kit broke down or there were long periods of shortage of materials, denying a lot of people the chance to register .

He urged qualified applicants in the affected centres who had not yet registered to take note and register, but was quick to caution those who had already registered as voters to avoid registering again, since that would amount to double registration.

Mr Owusu-Parry explained that any such double registration would be detected.

The mop-up will take place this weekend in eight of Ghana’s ten regions.

Fiji, vote, voter

Fiji Gearing Up for Biometric Voter Registration

Elections office to start registration training soon (Fiji Times)

People will be encouraged to report to the VRC close to them for registration. Registration of one person will not take more than three minutes. This will include the filling out of appropriate forms, picture taken through web camera, identification of thumb print and the printing out of identification card. This identification card will be presented to the polling station during election in 2014.

Source: CIA World Factbook – Fiji
elections, fingerprint, fraud, Ghana, ID, vote, voter

Without Biometric Voter Verification, Ghana May Spend Much to Accomplish Little

Biometric verification in December polls will be suicidal – Ephson (Modern Ghana)

Ben Ephson served the warning on Accra-based Radio Gold’s Power Drive morning show on Wednesday and according to him, voter verification would not be a panacea to vote rigging or electoral fraud in the December 7 polls.

He added that what will be useful is vigilance from all stakeholders to make the electoral process free and fair. Ben Ephson further added that the best the biometric voters register could do would be to prevent multiple voting. It would however not be able to stop people from altering figures generated from the polls.

“Panacea” has nothing to do with it. Without verification, the biometric enrollment exercise undertaken in Ghana can only tell you how many bad credentials (that can still become a vote) have been issued by legitimate authorities.

Without biometric verification, the whole enrollment exercise turns on the ID document. A document-dependent electoral system can be successful if three conditions are met: The process whereby legitimate documents are issued is very rigorous; The document is extremely difficult to counterfeit; And there is no significant corruption of the ballot-stuffing or ballot destroying variety.

Rigor in the document creation would include such measures as a real-time biometric query against the database of registered voters before issuing a new registration card in order to prevent duplicate registrations. Making a document difficult to forge involves high tech printing techniques or embedded biometrics for later verification. The corruption part is a function of culture and institutional controls.

Are these three conditions satisfied in Ghana? No; No & I don’t know.
♦ No, there is no real-time check to prevent issuing multiple cards to the same individual
♦ No, the printer used to create the card is a very ordinary desk-top printer
♦ I don’t know much about Ghana’s cultural and institutional ability to resist corruption but judging by published editorials, at least some people are very worried about potential shenanigans.

Avoiding over-reliance on the physical ID document is perhaps the greatest benefit of using biometrics in elections. If there is no biometric voter verification, the only voting requirement is to have a more-or-less convincing registration card with a more-or-less convincing photo on it.

Biometric verification by making the finger rather than the paper the overriding criterion for receiving a blank ballot, confers two tremendous advantages. Multiple voting can be made extremely difficult even for people who have multiple government issued registration cards. Second, ballot stuffing can be curbed because an audit of the total number of votes recorded can be compared to the number of fingerprints verified on election day as legitimate voters.

By creating the a perception that the electoral apparatus is more effective than it really is, implementing a biometric voter enrollment system without biometric voter verification may even lead to more electoral uncertainty than the system being replaced.

A well-thought-out biometric voting system can reduce fraudulent voting to very low levels but it’s also possible to spend a lot of money on a leaky system that involves biometrics without accomplishing much in the way improving the integrity of the vote. There is reason to fear that the Ghanain system more closely resembles the latter than the former.

UPDATE:
Ghana has since made statements indicating a desire to biometrically verify voters’ identities on election day.

UPDATE II:
Ghana opts for biometric voter verification

UPDATE III:
Verification hardware to be tested

Ghana, voter

Ghana Biometric Voter Roll: Beyond the Big Push

EC To Undertake Continuous Voter’s Registration Next Year (Ghana Soccernet)

The Electoral Commission (EC) would undertake continuous voter?s registration exercise at the District Electoral Offices of the Commission next year, for those who had attained 18 years and those who could not register during this year?s biometric voter?s registration exercise.

Good thinking. Eventually, organizations have to switch from a “system start-up” mode to a “system maintenance” mode.