Sheburi says they grappled with whether there was a way the commission could use technology to better present the menu to voters so that they choose with confidence and on an informed basis.
He said the third leg of consideration was figuring out what can be done to safeguard the outcome of elections, seeing as though, increasingly on the continent and globally, elections get challenged.
“\[It would be good\] if we could find a way to improve our results handling and the speed with which we issue results. The question is if we used efficiency gains from technology, is it possible that we could drive down the costs of running the elections?”
Despite the mooted introduction of an alternate voting element, Sheburi believes the existing manual system of voting has served the country well.
“It's key benefit is that every voter leaves the station knowing that he or she made their X next to their party of choice. It is visual and tactile, and they can see the process, whereas with e-voting those things happen on programmes and machines and if there are issues of trust you can't verify. So if you have lingering doubts that your vote is recorded as you cast it, it's a challenge.”
However solid the manual system may be, it is not exempt from critique on its present challenges, he told TimesLIVE.
“A few challenges of the manual system include the increasing size and length of the ballot paper — last year for the first time we had a ballot paper that filled two columns — so in certain instances with voters who are less confident they end up either making a mark just for the sake of it because they believe they are holding up the line, or even end up making a miscast.”
Sheburi said those hurdles can be mitigated through e-voting, which will allow the electoral commission to present those options to voters in an intuitive way.
“Considering the increased penetration of the use of gadgets, it might just be easier for people to find their party on a screen than it is to find their party on a ballot paper. I am not being alarmist, but in future elections the ballot paper may go to multiple pages.”