Use of IT in elections —I

Today’s world has become a digital forest and all of us are inhabitants of this forest, where no entity can survive without the use of technology. From a bird’s eye view impact analysis, 7.3 out of 8 billion people in the world are mobile users, which accounts for 91.4% of the world’s total population. The introduction of innovative technologies is often based upon a universal myth; “Think Revolutionary and Act Evolutionary”.

However, there is a fundamental difference between Information Technology and Electoral Technology. Generically, IT standards are same everywhere, but Electoral Technology standards vary demographically and geographically, from country to country. Electoral Technology is more complex and extremely challenging as compared to Information Technology being a mission-critical task. All in-built standards of IT are part of Electoral Technology, with additional characteristics of basic Election Principles such as transparency, security, privacy, inclusiveness, simplicity, security, universal suffrage, tamper proof, verifiability, auditability, secrecy of ballot, free will of voter, prevent impersonation and intimidation etc. Similarly, “Election is not only naming the winner but to satisfy the losers that they have lost”.

Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is a technology-progressive organization – constantly developing and deploying Information and Electoral Technology projects to automate internal processes for officials and to facilitate major stakeholders like voters, political parties, Civil Society Organizations, media and the general public as technology brings transparency, efficacy, and accuracy, resulting in the rehabilitation of people’s trust in the electoral machinery. For deploying advanced and innovative technology in electoral process, ECP has a plurality of achievements, recognized by national and international organizations for technology-driven projects and efforts made to ensure the electoral process is free, impartial, and transparent.

i. Pilot Project of Electronic Voting Machine (EVM): EVMs have a mixed response globally as there are both success and non-success stories. ECP procured 150 customized Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and conducted pilot projects in NA-4 Peshawar on 26th October 2017 and in PP-20 Chakwal on 9th January 2018. About 100 EVMs were deployed at 100 polling booths, parallel to the conventional paper-based voting system.

ii. Pilot Project of Biometric Verification Machine (BVM): ECP procured customized Biometric Verification Machines (BVMs) (17” LCD, GPS, card reader, sensor, digital pad, and camera) and conducted a pilot project on 17th September 2017 in NA-120 (Lahore), parallel to the conventional paper-based voting system. The report of the pilot project was prepared and submitted to the Parliament on 31st December 2017, there has been no input from the venerable house to date.

iii. Overseas Voting Pilots using Internet Voting System: ECP has conducted a pilot test of overseas voting through Internet Voting System developed by NADRA on 14th October 2018 Bye-elections in 35 Constituencies. The pilot project report was prepared and submitted to the Parliament on 4th December 2018. The same report was again submitted to M/o Parliamentary Affairs for placing it before the Parliament for discussion and deliberations in April 2020.

iv. 8300 SMS (ECP’s International Award-Winning Service): ECP introduced world’s pioneer award-winning 8300 SMS service for general public in February 2012, which is running successfully for more than 11 years now. It’s a highly secure and transparent SMS service available for voters 24/7 within the territorial boundaries of the country. Voters can see his/her voting details instantly by sending 13 digits CNIC at 8300. Centre for Parliamentary Studies (ICPS), based in London, UK, declared the SMS 8300 service as a pioneer voters’ SMS service in the world and awarded two International Awards in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in December 2013. So far, more than 250 million mobile users have successfully checked their voting details.

v. Result Management System (RMS): Under Section 13 of the Elections Act 2017, an indigenously designed and developed smart software application was developed by IT Wing which has been used in more than 40 Bye-elections across the country successfully, wherein Form-47 of the constituencies were prepared before 2:00 a.m. as per Section 13(3) of the Act. Moreover, cascade training of more than 2,500 staff members was also conducted nationwide so far.

The RMS has the capability of working in both modes, online and offline wherein no dependencies are required in case of non-availability of internet. The said application is more secure and reliable after conduct of its 3rd party cybersecurity audit and rectifications and bug fixing of its few vulnerabilities. Due to strict compliance with Rule 84(1) of the Election Rules 2017, the administrative and operational processes of carrying results were also exponentially improved resulting in timely declaration of results in R.O. offices before 2 a.m.

vi. Technical Evaluation Committee: The Technical Evaluation Committee (TEC) was constituted including officers of IT Wing/PMU and a number of meetings have been conducted on following ongoing IT projects:-

i) Development of Election Management System (EMS);

ii) Purchase of IT equipment for General Elections (2,000 laptops);

iii) Upgradation of existing about 1,000 laptops (backup plan);

iv) Data Center setup in ECP and network infrastructure upgradation;

v) IT equipment & development for Election Monitoring Control Center;

vi) Enterprise-level hosting solution for RMS/EMS for General Elections;

vii) Internet connectivity for 859 R.O offices nationwide for General Elections;

viii) Integrated Office Record Management System (IORMS);

ix) New website developed, tested, and launched.

vii. Online Recruitment System (ORS): The Online Recruitment System (ORS) was developed and made available for the public to facilitate individuals for creating their professional profile accounts on ECP’s website and applying for vacant posts available online with ease and transparency. The said service has been operational since April 2020 and it complies with international standards, providing end-to-end transparency, verifiability, and auditability in the system. So far, more than 250,000 applicants have successfully applied online.

viii. Complaint Management System (CMS): The online Compliant Management System (CMS) has been operational since September 2020.

This valuable service allows individuals to send complaints and suggestions directly to the ECP. Each complaint is tracked through a ticket generation mechanism and recorded electronically using a real-time monitoring method and properly disposed off after the satisfaction of the complainant. So far, approximately 14,052 complaints have been handled successfully. The system has been designed in such a way that ECP’s top management can view the disposal of various complaints on a real-time basis.

(To be continued)