IIEC shows m-Government at work in Matuga

The Interim Independent Electoral Commission (IIEC) has done it. They have effectively demonstrated the use of mobile technologies in public service delivery, in technical terms – m-Government. This is what this column has in the past advocated for as the best way forward for an inclusive public-centric service delivery.

Just over five hours after the closing of the 101 polling stations in Matuga, the tallying center at Matuga Government Training Institute had already received about 50% of the results thanks to the newly implemented National Election Management System, which allows for electronic transmission of polling station results.

This to me is the sign of maturity of mobile technologies to handle mission critical and sensitive national tasks. On interesting facto about the system used by the IIEC is that its locally developed and, therefore, customized to the specifics of the requirements of the IIEC.

Unfortunately, this technological innovation is stranger to the existing election laws, which require that the results have to be confirmed by the submission of the infamous Form 16A. This means that the results that have been received will only act as provisional results until the said forms are submitted and approved by the Commission.

So, we still have some work to do. With this success, its time therefore that the law is changed to allow for the submission of an electronic version of Form 16A enough documentation required by the Commission to declare the office results of a polling station. When that happens then we can expect instant official election results as they stream into the big screens at the tallying centers.

But when you look at the application used to transmit the results, its actually a digitized Form 16A. It has all the details that are required by law to be included in the form. The fields included in the form include the number of votes cast, the number of spoilt votes and the number of valid votes per candidate.

Like in many other legal environments, the acceptability of electronic records as authentic documents that can stand the test of time has been growing. We have seen, the admissibility of electronic records such as spreadsheets and emails and even SMSs in court as evidence. This means we are ready to move to the electronic space and do all that we do in the physical world electronically with all legal certainty.

So with this showing in Matuga, I am sure even the techno-phobs out there are convinced that that’s the way to go. The onus is now on the IIEC to move to the next level and implement the system nationwide. I am not sure how ready they may be in terms of infrastructure acquisition and system ability, but it would have been a good thing to test this system in a live environment during the August 4^th referendum.

Having used the system in Mugirangu and now in Matuga, I am certain the bugs that could have been in the system have since been removed with enough time to clean it further should there be need to, to have seamless technology enabled referendum results transmission system. So, a double thumbs up to the IIEC and congratulations to the Matuga MP Elect, Hon Chirau Ali Mwakwere.