Source: The National
IT has always been an arduous task for the electoral commission to conduct free and fair polls in Papua New Guinea.
Millions of kina have been spent on this exercise over the past seven elections (1977-2007) to make sure that they are free, as much as possible, of all manner of corrupt practices.
Nowadays, it has become common for some forces to indulge in rigging, blatant vote-buying, coercion and intimidation to subvert this pillar of democracy which invariably leads to a result contrary to the actual verdict given or intended by the people.
The traditional means of selecting parliamentary representatives has for PNG been exclusively the domain of the ballot paper casting of votes. That will not change in the near or mid-term future. However, the verification of eligibility will come under better and more accurate verification.
The touted new system of casting votes being considered by the O’Neill government – the bio-metric voting system – is an attempt to eliminate the problems that are sure to arise on polling day.
Although the intentions are to improve, streamline and foolproof the voting process, we must point out that with every system, there are always a set of advantages and disadvantages to its implementation and use.
The primary benefit of employing bio-metrics would be to avoid rigging
and to enhance the
accuracy and speed of
the electoral process.
If the abject failure of the national census office to complete its function is anything to go by, we foresee more confusion and pandemonium within the 109 seats in parliament with the electoral office facing a challenging situation to conduct and manage the 2012 elections efficiently.
To this end, the bio-metric system uses thumb impressions for voter identification as we know that the finger print of every human being has a unique pattern.
Thus, it would have an edge over the present day voting systems. The mechanics of the system are simple enough.
As a pre-poll procedure, a database consisting of the thumb impressions of all the eligible voters in a constituency is created.
During elections, the thumb impression of a voter is entered as input to the system.
This is then compared with the available records in the database. If the particular pattern matches with anyone in the available record, access to cast a vote is granted.
But in case the pattern does not match with the records of the database or in case of repetition, access to cast a vote is denied or the vote gets rejected.
All data is fed into the system which is then collated via a network and sent to a central server.
The system has the potential to be very convenient and provide returning officers and other election officials an avenue to guard against duplicity.
In theory, no individual will be able to cast more than one vote or to vote on behalf of another.
But this all depends on the facilitators of the system.
The setback for a mostly rural-based population such as what exists in PNG is that creating a data base to include all eligible voters will be a tedious and expensive job.
There would literally need to be hundreds of scanners purchased for this purpose.
Apart from the financial cost of adopting the system, security will be an issue.
The vulnerability of expensive and sophisticated electronic equipment breaking down or being damaged and/or stolen is real.
That is why we are positive that if any change is to be made to our current voting system it must be done over the course of the next term with the assigned and relevant offices meeting a strict set of deadlines and quality control guidelines to make certain that we are fully prepared for another major shift in our election procedures.
From the first-past-the-post to the preferential system to the bio-metric system, the people are being given, more freedom to choose their leaders in a mode that reduces the difficulties that have been associated with PNG elections since independence.
But this much is clear we are not ready for such a system this year.
Therefore, when the writs are issued on April 27 and polling begins eight weeks later, all voters must head to the booths with the confidence that their vote will still count for something.