Headline June 15, 2015/ ''' ELECTRONIC VOTING SYSTEM ''' : *COOL BY CORNY*

''' ELECTRONIC VOTING SYSTEM ''' :

 *COOL BY CORNY*

OF LATE, HERE IN PAKISTAN, the first historic hosts of  -the World Students Society, -(lovingly called)   !WOW!,  I have been evolving, a rather, a weird sense of humour.

It must be the damn heat and the dehydration, and the power failures getting to me. 

I noticed, felt and swallowed my humour, when in response to a question from a senior political science professor, I proposed that:

Pakistan ought to use its thousands of ATM machines and even better, its vast Banking and branch network, to hold great elections. The learned professor and his class of students, guffawed to my delight.

Well, prof, as goes this time tested maxim, ''he who laughs last, laughs the loudest,''.......... goes this humble, I.

In Pakistan, the judicial commission inquiry on election rigging is still underway and all else has sunk into the background.

The Election Commission of Pakistan is currently thinking and rethinking its recommendations to the Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms. And many venture to speculate that in the next general elections-

Pakistan is more than likely to mark a switch to electronic voting. !WOW! And that could easily amount to over 6000 technology jobs for the students 

But lest I forget, I must thank Taha Ali,  Research Associate at Newcastle University, UK, for many beautiful thoughts on the next generation voting systems. So, he states:    

THE BUNDESTAG ELECTIONS IN 2005 saw a large deployment of about 2,000 machines in five different states, catering to some two million voters.

In 2009, amid growing public distrust of Electronic Voting Machines, political scientist Joachim Weisner and his son physicist Ulrich Weisner mounted a legal challenge.

They argued that the average voter could not verify the inner workings of these machines and therefore needed to place  ''blind faith''  in the technology. 

And, it had been demonstrated that these machines could easily be tampered with.

The Federal Constitutional Court of Germany agreed  in  2009, and ruled that electronic voting, as used in the last  10 years  was unconstitutional. This marked Germany's return to paper-based voting.

While this court order does not outlaw all forms of electronic voting, just the current incarnation of EVMs. It does  make for an interesting reading and contains subtle insights into the nature of democracy and what transparency truly means.

Arguing that   ''all essential steps in the election are subject to public examinability'' the court says that  EVM  ''only meets constitutional requirements-

If the essential steps of the voting and of the ascertainment of the result can be be examined reliably and without any specialist knowledge of the subject.

The very wide-reaching effect of possible errors of the voting machines or of deliberate electoral fraud make special precautions necessary in order to safeguard the principle of the public nature of elections.

The ruling concludes with: 

In a republic, elections are a matter for entire people and a joint concern of all citizens. Consequently, the monitoring of the election procedure must be a matter for and a task of  the citizen.

Each citizen must be able comprehend and verify the central steps in the elections.'' 

Such great challenges to Electronic Voting Machines are fairly common worldwide. 

And have put the brakes on electronic voting in many countries.

The Honour and Serving of the ''Political Operational Research'' continues. Thank you for reading, and maybe, learning something.

With respectful dedication to the Students, Professors and Teachers of Political Science. See Ya all on !WOW!   -the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless:

''' The !WOW! Attraction '''

'''Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless