It is about time that Pakistan came out of the dark ages and got rid of the paper ballot system!
Best way to avoid rigging and ensure free, fair, impartial and transparent elections is to have at the most 2-3 polling stations per city. Venues like stadiums or converting a huge piece of land into a temporary polling stations with tight security, media and observer presence. (This would avoid having numerous small polling stations that are easy targets for armed groups to target and take over for rigging purposes). These stadiums can be properly organised to contain enough entry/exits and multitude of electronic polling kiosks within to ensure quick turnaround and avoid long queues. Using biometric fingerprints where finger prints are linked to NIC through the NADRA database a person is identified on the kiosk, and upon positive identification he/she selects candidate and submits their vote.
A large screen overhead would show voting turnout in real time per constituency. At 5pm, hit button to publish result and everyone knows outcome.
It would require some investment but surely can be done!
Best way to avoid rigging and ensure free, fair, impartial and transparent elections is to have at the most 2-3 polling stations per city. Venues like stadiums or converting a huge piece of land into a temporary polling stations with tight security, media and observer presence. (This would avoid having numerous small polling stations that are easy targets for armed groups to target and take over for rigging purposes). These stadiums can be properly organised to contain enough entry/exits and multitude of electronic polling kiosks within to ensure quick turnaround and avoid long queues. Using biometric fingerprints where finger prints are linked to NIC through the NADRA database a person is identified on the kiosk, and upon positive identification he/she selects candidate and submits their vote.
A large screen overhead would show voting turnout in real time per constituency. At 5pm, hit button to publish result and everyone knows outcome.
It would require some investment but surely can be done!
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5 comments:
Boss, what do they say, when there is a will there is a way. The challenge is that there is no will to have this obsolete system eradicated. This way they will have lesser control on the think of things. Though, one thing that this election has done is to send a very heartening signal that people are interested in democracy and change through it. (that is a separate debate if democracy is best suited for us or not)
I agree. This would be another step towards 'tabdeeli' that the powers that be don't really want to see
On elections day, when I saw rigging and was unable to speak about that, the biometric system of voting was my ideal system which you mentioned clearly with proper details.
I agree with you and I think this process will not be too much expensive as compared to the old dirty system of balloting. But as the PATWARI GROUP stood before electronic system of land record, our politician will not allow such change. What do you say?
True, there will be a lot of resistance to this for various reasons from various quarters.
Having said that, even if the technology I mention comes through, it will not solve polling problems - technology itself is open to many issues of its own. The link below is very interesting on the subject:
http://www.uiowa.edu/~cyberlaw/cls06/papers/jmfinfin.htm
This may really work. With the power of new technology, this has been the start of how internet plays a very crucial part when it comes to e-democracy. With this innovation, the right of suffrage has deepened and gives great opportunities for people to vote electronically. With proper research and development, rigging can be prevented to happen and I'm pretty sure of that.
-SurveyAndBallotSystems.com
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