Extant literature revealed that elections conducted in traditional ways mostly result in conflicts. Intending to address such challenges, e-voting technology is being used in some countries to conduct a transparent election. However, the application of this new system encountered different challenges due to a lack of readiness to exploit its value, especially in developing countries contexts. To that end, the readiness of government, citizens, and political parties needs to be assessed before using e-voting as an electoral system. The main purpose of this study is to assess the gaps in the readiness of Ethiopia for e-voting system implementation. A qualitative research method is employed, and a thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. The finding revealed that Ethiopia is not ready in terms of information communication technology (ICT) infrastructure, human resources, and legality measures for e-voting technology. Finally, recommendations are forwarded for policymakers and practitioners for action.
TopBackground
Democratic voting is very important for a nation because it provides an opportunity for people to vote for their opinion and vote for what they believe in. It holds elected officials accountable for their behavior while in office and prevents minority from dictating the policies of the majority. Among the different types of voting, paper-based voting is the most dominating in many countries of the world. Currently, technological advancement provides an opportunity for countries of the world to use ICTs in the government’s democratic processes. Among the process electronic voting is the one that uses technological devices such as stand-alone or movable voting machines to cast votes.
International Democracy Election Assistance (IDEA) (2014) defines the e-voting system as a voting system which uses information and communication technologies to record, cast, and count votes in political elections and referendums. Electronic voting can be thought of as a better form of voting for eliminating the drawbacks of the paper-voting system. Even though e-voting technology plays an important role in the reduction of the problems of paper-based voting, its implementation is affected by several factors such as human resources, technology, and legal structure. Lubis (2018) said that the social structure, human resources, and ICT infrastructure of the country should be considered before adopting the system. There are also nine significant substances related to the previous adoption from other countries including internet vulnerabilities, democracy drawbacks, e-voting unconstitutionality, privacy, and confidentiality confusion, technology insecurity, fraud proneness, adverse experience, technical preparation, and hacker ability (Ardiyanti, 2016). According to a statistic from the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE), the first nationwide election was held under the provision of the current constitution in June 1994 to elect members of local government. A general election has since been held in 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015, yet the public reaction to those six election results was rigged which result in the death of many citizens in opposition to some polls. These concerns arise from the fact that voters do not have trust in the election result of the paper-based voting.
According to the Amnesty International Report (2015) among the problems of the Ethiopian election that resulted in the paper-based voting system was the lack of trust of the conservative parties that was mainly due to the delay of the official election results being announced. Also, some of the ruling party’s leaders would notice the stealing of the votes of opposition parties by intimidating observers and opposition party members at some polling stations. Also, the lack of opportunity for disabled citizens and citizens living outside the country to participate in the voting is a problem. These concerns are the main initiator for assessing the readiness of Ethiopia to implement the e-voting system. Rubin (2004) stated that elections require the citizen to choose the people they consider fit to serve. Naturally, the honesty of the political decision process is fundamental to the trustworthiness of democracy itself. He further claimed that any system designed for election must be a system capable of withstanding any attack. It must also be a system that the electorate can embrace and the election results should be acceptable by different candidates without any dispute. However, election results are most frequently manipulated to influence their outcome.
The electronic election provides several benefits for Ethiopia like reducing voting fraud that was raised in the previous elections, accessibility to eligible citizens across the country, quick election result announcement, reduce costs and secure trustfulness. In this research, the researchers sought to assess the readiness of the supply side for the implementation of the e-voting system in Ethiopia, identify factors that affect the readiness of e-voting systems such as ICT infrastructure, the legal framework and human resources.