Trust Worthy Voting

Pakistan Election 2013, was it really a trust worthy voting system? I am not here to condemn or point a finger at any political party of Pakistan that participated in election 2013. Every party is blaming the other  for rigging.

First let’s asses the voting system, was it completely trust worthy? A complete manual system, where people have to stand in line in hot summer days of Pakistan for hours and hours to cast their votes and finally when their turn comes they are not free to vote the party of their own choice. Leave a loop hole people will cheat and manipulate after all its human nature.

Where every thing is electronic and computerized why has our country failed to make use of technology. If not 100% than to a great extent the cheating and rigging could have been monitored and brought down.

 Governments the world over have been trialing and deploying electronic voting systems. This voting system has the potential to provide more efficient elections with higher voter participation, better accuracy and lower costs, compared to current manual methods. A properly designed and engineered system could also offer much better security properties too, such as vote privacy even in the face of untrusted election authorities, and voter verification.

Even though E-Voting was being considered for over seas Pakistanis, which could not be materialized due to shortage of time and other issues, the E-Voting should be seriously considered for not only over seas Pakistanis but entire nation. I hope and pray the next National Election would be much reliable and trust worthy and hopefully we will not see or hear any one running around with ballot boxes.

The IT Ministry , ECP and NADRA should get together and seriously work out some solution, what done is done, what’s lost is lost but for future let us not repeat the same mistake again. Let’s hope and pray for better years ahead.