Monday | 7 October 2024 | Reg No- 06
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Monday | 7 October 2024 | Epaper

In My View

EC’s bizarre obsession with electronic voting machines

Published : Friday, 13 January, 2023 at 12:00 AM  Count : 956
Syed Badiuzzaman
About 40 years ago, I was assigned to cover a seminar on �The Priorities of the Economy of Bangladesh� or on a very similar topic which was held in one of the conference rooms of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology or BUET. I was then working at the New Nation, an up-and-coming Dhaka daily. The seminar was organized either individually by BUET or in partnership with another organization.

It was an interesting seminar because it was attended by a professor of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University of the United States as a guest speaker. Even though the professor of the American university was of Bangladeshi origin, he was very articulate on the state of the economy of Bangladesh and made his point in a candid manner impressing many in the audience. All local participants in the seminar spoke with not much clarity about their main point or what they actually wanted to say.

But the visiting professor from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute whose name I cannot remember after so many years was truly an exception. He stood out among all the prominent economists and academics who participated in the seminar. His extempore speech on the topic was absolutely clear. Suggesting for a shift in the priorities of the economy of Bangladesh, he told the seminar that �Instead of importing air-conditioner from abroad, Bangladesh should rather spend money on tube wells and irrigation projects for agriculture in rural areas.�
The readers may wonder why I am bringing up that old story after so many years today. Well, there is a clear reason for this. The Virginia Polytechnic Institute professor�s valuable advice still applies to the policymaking in Bangladesh. Forty years on, the priorities of the economy of Bangladesh are still not properly set. At a time of global recession which has not spared even Bangladesh, some policymakers are planning to spend billions of taka to buy voting machines instead of spending that money in productive sectors.

As reported by Bangladesh media, the government is going ahead with a mega project of Bangladesh Election Commission to buy 200,000 new electronic voting machines or EVMs spending an estimated amount of Tk 8,711 crore. �The project will be approved as soon as possible. We are communicating with the officials of the Election Commission and the project may be approved even tomorrow,� said Planning Minister MA Mannan, adding �election must be held and the EC should be fully cooperated with as per instructions in the constitution.�

Reading between the lines, everybody will assume that the EChas submitted a requisition to the government for purchase of 200,000voting machines spending Tk 8,711 crore and they will be used in 150 ridings in the next election. And as it is a requirement of the EC for conducting the general election in the country, it is an obligation of the government to fulfill this requirement abiding by the instructions in the constitution for cooperation between the two. And that is the reason the planning minister has emphatically said that the project will be approved soon to cooperate with the EC and help it hold the next election.

As we understand, it is EC�s demand for 200.000 electronic voting machines for conducting elections in half of the total constituencies in the country. However, we have some questions here to ask Bangladesh Election Commission. Why have EVMs become a prerequisite for voting in 150 ridings next year? Why can�t the EC still go ahead and hold election with paper ballots in those ridings in traditional way? Why should Bangladesh spend such a huge amount of people�s money without any clear approval from them? And for the government, the question is how will it make sure that there is no objection from the majority people of the country to the expenditure of such a huge amount of money from the national exchequer for buying non-essential voting machines?

Everybody including those in the government knows very well that there is no strong and effective opposition in the current parliament of Bangladesh. That means there is no scope for a proper debate on this extremely important national issue in the parliament. And then there are some more important questions. Is it the right time to spend such a big amount of money for non-essential purchase when the entire global economy including of course the economy of Bangladesh is passing through a critical time? Will the use of the electronic voting machines  radically improve the election system in Bangladesh? Let us be honest here. The answer is clearly no.

Then why EVMs spending Tk 8,711 crore out of people�s money? Give us one good reason! This is not the right time for the Bangladesh government to go for such a huge expenditure for a non-essential purchase. On the contrary, this is rather time to cut expenditures in view of the continuing global recession. The World Bank has just made a gloomy prediction for the world economy through 2023 and even beyond. �The bleak outlook will be especially hard on emerging market and developing economies as they struggle with heavy debt burdens, weak currencies and income growth, and slowing business investment that is now forecast at a 3.5% annual growth rate over the next two years -- less than half the pace of the past two decades.�

Opposition politicians are furious over EC�s decision to buy the voting machines when Bangladesh is facing serious economic trouble like many other countries. President of Gono forum Kamal Hossain blasted the EC for deciding to use EVMs in the next election. �Despite the objections of most of the political parties, the Election Commission is now taking preparation to conduct the voting through EVMs in 150 constituencies which is a dreadful sign for the nation,� he said. Former student leader and currently a politician Sheikh Shahidul Islam also slammed EC�s decision. �If EVMs are used in 150 seats and paper ballots in others, then there will be two types of elections. It will be discriminatory. The person who uses EVMs will get one kind of treatment and the person who does not will get another kind,� Islam said.  

A group of Bangladesh�s prominent citizens has also warned the EC not to use EVMs in the next election saying �we will once again face a failed election which will lead us into dire crisis as a nation.� �EVM is a weak device. It does not have Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail [VVPAT]. As a result, there is no scope to recount or examine the results declared by the Election Commission. EVM results can also be manipulated through programming as in any other electronic device. Besides, the technical team deployed at the field level during the election can also change the election results,� they said. So, what makes the EC so obsessed with the electronic voting machines? Only four countries in the whole world use EVMs nationwide. Eleven countries use them partially and eleven other countries which experimented with EVMs decided against using them.

Except India, most of the major democratic countries in the world including the United States, England, France, Germany and Italy are not using EVMs because of the lack of transparency. In 2011, the Indian Supreme Court directed the Election Commission of India to include a Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail or VVPAT for reliability. So, India has started using EVMs with VVPAT. If Bangladesh can also make similar arrangement, only then it should consider using EVMs in place of paper ballots in the elections.


Most Bangladeshis are not asking Bangladesh Election Commission to modernize the election system in Bangladesh using the electronic voting machines. They are rather asking the EC to hold a free, fair, credible, participatory and internationally acceptable election in the country. So, instead of going for the big shopping, the EC should focus on how to hold a free and fair vote next year.


-    The writer is a Toronto-based journalist who also writes for the Toronto Sun as a guest columnist










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