Would the electronic voting system have been forced through - if
the SDP and CSJ did not bring this controversial matter to public
attention ?
It now seems that the stage has all been set for its
implementation - with the PAP dominated Parliament already giving
its "RUBBER STAMP" approval for the Electronic Voting System to be
used.
Amidst the publicity raised to the controversies on the
computerized election system, there not seem to be caution
exercised by the incumbent party in power.
Is this not putting "the cart before the horse" - by passing
legislations to implement a system then considering its impact
?
The following is extracted from the site of a blogger
:
By the Singapore Democrats
20 April 2009
A few days after the Singapore Democrats warned of the Government’s
intention to procure electronic voting machines (EVMs),
the Straits Times swung into action
and contacted the Elections Department for comments.
The newspaper quoted the Department’s statement that “to date, no
decision has been taken yet on when electronic voting will be
implemented in our elections and which electronic voting system
will be used.”
The Straits Times also reported that the subject
is not new as it was debated and
approved by Parliament in 2001. Note
that the Elections Department did not categorically state that EVMs
would not be used in the next GE.
Many Singaporeans are not aware of the fact that everything is in
place for the PAP to switch to using these machines. It’s only a
question of when and how it will be done.
The Straits Times also tells us that “the system
must also allow for voting in secret and be safe from fraudulent
use.” But while the media in the US are screaming and hollering
about the weakness of such systems, there is only silence here in
Singapore.
The fact remains that such
computers are highly open to fraudulent use.
In addition, we do not have an independent
elections body to audit and monitor the integrity of an e-voting
system if and when it is implemented.
The Singapore Democrats did our own homework and
contacted Dr Rebecca
Mercuri, one of the world’s foremost expert in computer
security. Dr Mercuri’s research into the abuse of e-voting systems
have been cited in briefs to the US Supreme Court as well as by the
US and UK governments.
She told us: “I would be extremely concerned about Singapore’s
proposed procurement and use of EVMs. I believe that the best
voting system involves voters hand-marking paper ballots, with a
public hand-count of all ballots. Any electronic tallying, of
either hand-prepared or electronic ballots, cannot be relied on as
accurate.”
Dr Mercuri pointed out that some of the e-voting systems that are
used in the US have the capability of deleting votes. Either that
or extra votes can be cast — without detection.
This was confirmed as recent as only a few weeks ago in California
with certain Diebold/Premier voting systems found to be open to
misuse and abuse.
It was also reported last month that the Irish
government will scrap the idea of using e-voting despite it having
purchased the computers. The reason is because it could not trust the integrity of
the system. Likewise, Germany and the
Netherlands have abandoned plans to switch to e-voting.
E-voting in Singapore is an issue
that must be resurrected. We ignore it at our
peril.