Voting machines

Egypt is not the first country outside of India to opt for Indian electronic voting machines or EVMs as they are popularly called.

They have already been successfully deployed in Afghanistan and the Indian election commission has also provided advice to Nepal, Bhutan, Ethiopia and Mexico on the use of EVMs in making the election process fairer and more transparent.

After the recent upheavals in Egypt and the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's military rulers have announced an interim constitution and said presidential elections will be held by November.

Sharing experience of EVMs

During his trip to Egypt, India's Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi held separate meetings with Egypt’s Supreme Committee for Presidential Elections and High Election Committee for Parliamentary Elections where he gave advice about India’s electoral system and told officials how electronic voting machines could be best deployed.

"They wanted to share our experience," Quraishi said. "They expressed a very keen interest in the EVMs. We showed them how it works and how our experience has been. But I strongly advised them it is also ideal for them to develop their own technology."

Noting that Egypt was at the crossroads of democracy, Quraishi also said that people had to believe in progress. "Any technology is always suspect," he pointed out.

"In fact, every process in the election is initially viewed with suspicion and skepticism. Perceptions are very important which is why we suggested to them that developing their own technology and taking their people along was very, very important."

India’s Election Commission left behind two sets of EVMs for possible trials by the Egyptian government.

"What we have seen is that it is a very good machine and takes care of our concerns with regards to some attempts in the past to say the elections were not honest and there were modifications to the votes and forgery," pointed out Khaled El Bakly, Egypt's ambassador to India.

"So we are talking to India and other countries to see what is best for us. The final decision on whether the voting system used in the coming parliamentary elections will be electronic or not is yet to be decided."

Credible elections are crucial

But P.R Kumaraswami, the head of the centre of West Asian Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, thought there were more pressing matters than voting machines.

"The most important thing in the Egyptian context is to establish credible elections. In the last 30 years, they have simply been rigged from the top."

He said that it was crucial that the process was transparent and that this would pose the "real challenge. In those circumstances EVMS may not be the appropriate way."

In India, certain sections of the political class have already raised questions as to the effectiveness of voting machines, which were first used in the 1999 elections.

In the 2009 general elections, an estimated 714 million Indians cast their vote in over 828,000 polling stations across the nation using the voting machines.

Author: Murali Krishnan
Editor: Anne Thomas