Voon calls for test runs to ensure security, reliability of e-voting system

KUCHING: The electronic voting ( e- voting) system to be adopted by Parti Keadilan Rakyat ( PKR) for its next round of party election has raised some concern at the grassroots level.

National PKR vice women chief Voon Shiak Ni said some party members wanted her to bring up the issue of security and reliability of the e-voting system.

“The PKR party election polls had been completed for a few states in the country, and Selangor has completed its first round of polls yesterday ( Sunday).

“And there are two more rounds of polls to go which should be held for the coming weekends. While the party polls are on- going, some of our party members have observed some inconsistencies in the results polled by certain teams which cannot be properly explained,” she said in a statement yesterday.

Voon thus called for test runs on all the tablets that will be used for the e- voting system during the forthcoming polls over the next couple of weekends.

She felt that the party should replace e- voting with the conventional paper balloting in the event that test runs were not feasible.

According to her, paper balloting is more convenient to Sarawak given that the network connection speed in the state leaves much to be desired.

She pointed out that some areas in Sarawak might even have network connection problem.

“The security and reliability of e- voting are a worldwide concern and experts on the matter have reported serious f laws being detected in the security system while the issue of verifiability is at stake.”

She quoted a Harvard cyber law study into e-voting trials done in Switzerland and noted that the issue of security in e- voting against vote manipulation, malware and other threats to the system.

Because of this, Voon called upon the party’s top leadership to enlighten party members on the system installed or programmed to enable the evoting process.

She said all members who are voters should be able to verify that the ballot cast corresponded to the number being recorded and tabulated.

“E- voting system has not been properly validated as a secure system and this is a worldwide concern. Reviews on the system conducted in other countries revealed flaws and vulnerabilities of online voting, which include risk of tampering.

“We call on our top leadership to sit down and look into this disturbing issue, and do the necessary to ensure that party polls will be clean and fair,” she added.