To E-Vote Or Not To E-Vote!

Parliamentary And Presidential Elections Raise The Issue Of E-Voting For Egyptians Locally And Abroad

With several people totally for the idea of Egyptians voting from abroad and others totally against it, fears are increasing that chaos will prevail over the coming Shura and Parliamentary elections, or even Presidential elections. A state of skepticism was evident after the historical court verdict that Egyptians abroad have the right to vote, and are willing to exercise this right. The fear stems from problems and obstacles that would arise from this issue such as the inability of existing techniques to conduct proper voting, or that any kind of hacking or penetration could take place and ruin the entire process altogether, and thus open the door for objections and controversy.

According to the President of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) Abu Bakr El Gendy, the agency has no relation in any way to the process of inventory or determining the number of Egyptians living abroad, as CAPMAS obtains these figures from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The numbers released by the ministry have reached 8 million till last December but the actual number of people registered in the embassies and consulates is only 1.5 million citizens. The question that remains is: will the elections take place on time or will they be postponed to take the necessary measures?

One of the proposed solutions for Egyptians voting from abroad is e-voting. The Consumer Rights Protection Committee (CRPC) affiliated to the NTRA had issued its recommendations as follows:

The CRPC has found out that it is highly necessary to activate the e-voting procedures during the upcoming elections.

Nevertheless, the committee has recommended the gradual implementation thereof, due to the novelty of the whole process and the lack of any previous experience in this respect. In other words, it will take place provided that the implementation takes place only in one governorate as a start. In addition, the committee believes the most appropriate governorate for the inception of this process is Ismailyah governorate due to the appropriate population size and its high cultural level.

CRPC also recommends the strengthening of the process of e-voting in the syndicates so that the whole society gains more confidence in it.

Furthermore, it recommends that various telecom operators, with their call centers contribute to this process by giving the citizens all information and guidelines about their electoral districts during the upcoming legislative elections.

In fact, CRPC reviewed many international practices concerning e-voting, and recommends that Egypt should take advantage of the Indian experience in this respect as it has been more secure from the technical point of view. Nasser Abdel Aziz, Head of the Arab – American group of New Jersey, and Yousry El Kashef, Head of the General Union of Egyptians working in the Netherlands, both reiterated that the verdict stating the right of Egyptians living abroad to participate in the voting process in elections is a historical verdict. They further said that there are more than 11 million Egyptians living abroad and they have the right to vote according to the constitution and the Egyptian law. They went on to say that since the country admitted their right in voting then it’s also their right to nominate themselves in any elections. They stressed that e-voting would be the perfect solution and that this will be considered a step that will open up several mechanisms for communication between Egypt and its citizens studying or working abroad.

Amr Ragaay, CEO of SNS, a company which has the license for esignature, reiterated the existence of an electronic system for digital voting, using the electronic digital ID presented by companies that have e-signature licenses to the MCIT. “E-signature certificates are certificates that contain the National ID number according to several defined rules  to ensure there is no misuse of these certificates,” he said.

“They contain an e-print exclusive to each individual to enable people to vote out of their constituencies.” He went on to say that this is considered the main issue that was discussed in recent cabinet meetings in cooperation with the MCIT. As for securing the voting process through this system, Ragaay clarified that this system guarantees transparency through many elements such as personality identification which mainly depends on personal information such as the national ID, and also the permission factor which asserts that voting is done once and cannot be repeated or duplicated.

Encryption is another element while the last is the e-print which guarantees the secrecy of the voting process and prevents manipulations of any kind. He pointed out that e-voting will not only serve in the process of Egyptians voting abroad, but could also be used internally for all Egyptians who have good knowledge of how to use the internet. “It should be accompanied by an awareness campaign to ensure how to practically and efficiently use and implement it to become a successful procedure,” he added.

Yasser El Kady, President of ITIDA and Head of the committee entrusted with the study of the possibility of implementing e-voting, commented, “One of the main obstacles that hinders the existence of e-voting is the law of political rights and elections.” He pointed out that these laws must be amended to enable e-voting or remote voting.

He revealed that the ITIDA is studying the possibility of submitting a formal request to the SCAF to amend clauses of these laws to enable the e-voting process and to make it effective for Egyptians to vote from abroad.

El Kady further said that ITIDA has prepared a study on the possibility of utilizing the ICT infrastructure to present e-voting services. Furthermore, the study tackled facilitating the process of Egyptians voting abroad as well as working on increasing and widening the platform of participants for the upcoming presidential elections. “Discussions on this matter witnessed a severe commitment and awareness on the necessity of providing the e voting option for both Egyptians locally and abroad. This option should enjoy the utmost safety and security to be guaranteed by ITIDA as the only agency assigned with organizing and regulating the e-voting process,” he said.

Dr. Sherif Hashem, Vice President of ITIDA, stated that e-voting is not an easy process and has many and intertwined aspects that have to be properly addressed. Hashem said that for the process to be properly implemented it has to undergo the technical stage from agencies or companies that provide e-signature services. In case of the availability of these techniques, they must be presented to legal experts to determine the possibility of legally implementing e-voting. “Using e-voting techniques will certainly help in increasing the number of voters and will allow for Egyptians abroad to exercise their electoral rights and vote in elections,” he added.

Councilor Abdel Fattah Hegazy, VP of the Egyptian State Council and Head of the Scientific Committee of the Egyptian Association of Cyber Law (EACY), stated that “48 hours were enough for the required legislative changes”. He stressed on the importance of e-voting to increase the effectiveness of the elections by providing the necessary infrastructure and the needed software and programs for such a process to be successful. He criticized the tardiness of ITIDA in creating this infrastructure, although the e-signature initiative had been launched a long time ago but did not have a major role or activity in any of the sectors in general.

“The security factor is an important issue to be tackled and not to be neglected,” said Dr. Yousry Zaky, an expert on e-data security. He clarified that e-elections is an expression that encompasses all means of electronic voting, reiterating that e-voting has many advantages such as speed, less cost and effective results, more accuracy and less chance of human error. He pointed out that many countries around the globe depend on e-voting as it facilitates the process of voting especially for people with special needs and people living abroad, while other countries avoided the process altogether.

“This system of voting is quite effective as it lessens the percentage of error. Implementing such a system would be greatly beneficial in elections and would help in producing accurate and dependable results,” he said. Eng. Hatem Zahran, Head of the workgroup on e-Content in Egypt, pointed out the importance of conducting elections through more advanced means that could save time and effort. He suggested that voting through mobile phones could be an ideal way of voting in elections or referendums. “Time, effort and cost are huge constraints that the election process must overcome. In addition, security is also an issue. New effective means of voting should be found to lessen the burdens and ease the whole process,” he stated. He stressed that voting through the mobile phone is one of the fastest, most effective and less time consuming means of voting. The idea is simply in the tie between the ownership of the mobile phone with the national ID number. A secret code number could be created for each phone, and through sending an SMS, all eligible voters could participate within a few minutes. As for security concerns, he said that many monetary transactions take place over the mobile phone now, such as transferring money or activating credit cards, so it has already been tried and guaranteed.