BLUE LINES • THE INSIDE VIEW Amid a relentless election season – Mali, Togo and Zimbabwe this week alone – Africa’s determined voters deserve recognition. Not only did they patiently queue from the early hours this week, facing high security risks in northern Mali and rural Zimbabwe, they are showing increasing ingenuity in making their votes count. That means everything from reporting electoral malfeasance to journalists and independent observers to using mobile phones and social media to get their messages out. This doesn’t guarantee free or fair elections but it is gradually reducing the room for manoeuvre of determined election-riggers. Political will is the key ingredient for credible elections but technology, institutions and activist pressure can also help. Yet little effort was made to use modern technology in the Malian and Zimbabwean elections. Both countries deemed biometric electoral registration and an online, universally accessible register too expensive. As Kenya’s experience showed in March, biometric registration and digital transmission are not flawless but they can reduce error and manipulation and make life more difficult for those trying to fix the result from the inside. The production of credible electoral registers was critically important in both Mali and Zimbabwe but the authorities could not or would not provide them. The extra costs of such technology are easily justified: they add vital credibility to elections that are already costing tens of millions of dollars.
Posted on: Fri, 02 Aug 2013 10:21:03 +0000
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