e-Voting to be introduced in Bahrain

Bahrain has undertaken pioneering steps to radically transform the shape of political decision-making into a citizen-oriented vision with its e-voting system, says a United Nations expert. At the first Bahrain e-Voting Forum at the InterContinental Hotel, Najat Rochdi, UN Development Programme's information and communication technology (ICT) division regional director, said Bahrain is a pioneer in the region and abroad, said the use of ICT in democratic process will help at several levels - in decision making, knowledge flow and in creating a knowledge base. "First, touch-screen systems can reduce several common mistakes voters make in the booth," she noted. "Second, they provide immediate feedback on the vote, improve transparency of the elections and narrow the level of fraud", she said. Election and referendum director Shaikha Muneera bint Abdulla Al Khalifa described the e-voting in Bahrain as a genuine experiment of democratic transformation to the horizons of the 21st century. She said the e-voting technology would be available for the forthcoming elections. The two-day event was organised by the Bahrain Information Technology Society (BITS), in co-operation with the UNDP's ICT division in the Arab region and the Bahrain Election and Referendum Directorate. Read more here

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"e-voting" Author: Susan C Periano Time: 31.01.2006 09:28 Comment: Methods don't create fraud, people do. It's time for technology to come up with a foolproof method of voting. If large institutions such as hospitals & banks & financial establishments can maintain their systems without hacker problems, why not government for voting? I applaud Bahrain for taking this initiative.

"Using E-Voting is inherently insecure" Author: Joseph Holder Time: 31.01.2006 03:44 Comment: I was quite surprised by the assurances that the use of touch-screen voting in Bahrain will enhance security. The use of computers to record or tabulate votes introduces multiple methods of altering the true will of the people expressed in their vote. It is the most non-transparent method of voting. It is entirely based upon "faith". It is by faith that a person believes that their touch on the screen actually will be recorded as for that candidate. It is by faith that the citizens can believe that the totals reported have not been manipulated or switched. One person, whether a corrupted programmer or technician, or some other person willing or wanting to influence an election, can decide an election, totally without trace. Do a Google search on the Harri Hursti Hack and see what was finally proven in Florida when a courageous local election official finally allowed independent computer experts to actually test an e-voting machine. It concurs with every other independent test confirming that e-voting, whether done on a touch-screen or an optical scanner, has major vulnerabilities. Check out blackboxvoting.org, votetrustusa.org, verifiedvoting.org, votersunite.org, etc. One thing worse than a dictatorship is a dictatorship that cloaks itself in the facade of democracy. E-voting is just that, a facade. Most e-voting systems have been developed by private corporations, with proprietary source code, little to no testing, and they have proven themselves to be much more costly, very unreliable, and worse, susceptible to fraud.

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