PM Imran Khan has a new bee in his bonnet. Without realizing the peculiar social conditions in Pakistan like a weak democratic culture, absence of universal literacy, prevalence of conspiracy theories and people being used to voting through paper ballots, Mr Khan has decided to hold next elections through electronic voting system being used in the United States. On Saturday an all too pliable President issued an ordinance authorizing and directing the ECP to place orders for Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and enable overseas Pakistanis to exercise their right to vote in the next general elections. The PM has expressed dissatisfaction over the delay in the implementation of his latest brainwave.
The EVMs can no doubt help prepare the election results in a short time. There are however solid political reasons against their abrupt introduction at the national level in next elections. The system had to be abandoned by some of the developed European countries because it failed to inspire confidence in voters and led to a return to paper ballots. This will be all the more likely to happen in a country like Pakistan where the vast majority of voters doesn’t know what happens inside the chipset and software and who have gone through the bitter experience of the failure of the Results Transmission System (RTS) in the 2018 polls. There is no way to check rigging through the electronic voting as an EVM cannot prevent ballot stuffing, capturing booths in polling stations, impersonation and other kinds of rigging.
EVMs can only be introduced at a prohibitive cost that the country cannot afford. Pakistan will need at least 350,000 machines, each costing about Rs 150,000, with the total cost amounting to about Rs 52 billion for the machines alone. About 50,000 machines will be required as backup. Electronic voting requires capital spending every few years to update the equipment as well as annual spending for maintenance, security and supplies. Funds would also be needed for the storage, maintenance, logistics, training and transportation.
The introduction of EVMs being a political issue, there is a need to develop consensus over them in Parliament after a thorough discussion in the concerned committees and debate. The ECP needs to be asked to provide inputs to the parliamentarians. The government must meanwhile avoid a hasty decision on the issue.
