By Salama A Salama Public controversy is still raging over the amendment of constitutional Article 88, pertaining to judicial supervision of the electoral process. As the article stands, a judge must be assigned to each polling station; amended, it should create a general judicial electoral authority with extensive powers. Unfortunately, there seems to be no simple satisfactory way out of this dilemma that will ensure the integrity of the voting process. Unless, that is, we go the way of dozens of other countries and introduce electronic voting machines, which are said to offer the surest guarantee against tampering. The government, however, is clearly not thrilled at the prospect, in spite of its endless talk of computerising the state bureaucracy. Otherwise, why would the People's Assembly have put such a mysterious halt to all discussion on the parliamentary floor of electronic voting, and for reasons so obscure that they can be only be construed as a reflection of the government's abhorrence for any modern technology that might serve as an impartial monitor of its activities? The reason judges are now placed in every polling station is because past electoral experiences have taught us that some impartial authority had to be on hand with power to prevent all attempts to falsify the will of the voter in favour of a particular candidate or party. Now, technological advancement offers a way to overcome even the human frailty that a judge might be vulnerable to, due to political bias, monetary inducement or intimidation by security forces. In addition, electronic balloting puts paid to the excuse that there are simply not enough judges to cover every polling station, at least if elections are to be held on the same day, and it takes the wind out of the sails of that curious argument that supervising the polls somehow taints the prestige of the judiciary. Electronic voting, which Gamal Ghitas has explained so thoroughly in a recent article in Al-Ahram and in his book Digital Democracy, seems, therefore, to offer the key to eliminating all forms of electoral fraud and, simultaneously, to resolving the government's facedown with the judges -- if, indeed, the aim is ensuring the integrity of the balloting process. The way electronic voting works is ultimately quite simple. It draws on the currently available information in the National Identification Number database, which is virtually impossible to tamper with, in order to prepare voter databases for an election. These databases can be easily updated under the supervision of the General National Electoral Board. The electronic ballot machines themselves are linked into this database and are designed so that voters know exactly where their vote has gone after they entered their preferences. India has recently developed a tamper- proof machine tailored to the circumstances of a country that, like here, has a high level of illiteracy. Certainly, if introduced here it would obviate the need for a judge in every polling station and it would lend weight to arguments in favour of forming a general national elections authority. A National Democratic Party delegation was reported to have gone to India to observe the Indian electronic voting system in action, but apparently they were not impressed. It is probably too late now to introduce electronic voting in time for the next Shura Council elections or for the referendum on the proposed amendments to the constitution. But it is not too late to set into motion the technical preparations needed to make electronic voting possible for any elections held after that. What is certain is that unless we avail ourselves of this modern technology, which will spare us no end of futile debates, we will never see clean elections in the foreseeable future. We should bear such thoughts in mind as we recast Article 88.
