Session

Summary

This webinar explored the costs and benefits of using digital technology in African elections. Experts discussed how technology can enhance efficiency, transparency, and credibility of elections, while also presenting challenges like high costs, cybersecurity risks, and potential disenfranchisement. Panelists highlighted successful implementations of digital tools in voter registration and identification across countries like Nigeria, Kenya, and Somaliland. However, they noted that full digitization remains difficult due to infrastructure limitations and the need to maintain manual backups.

The discussion emphasized that technology should reinforce core democratic principles like universal suffrage and public participation. Building public trust was identified as crucial, with panelists suggesting a gradual, context-specific approach to implementing digital solutions. They stressed the importance of strong data protection laws and institutional frameworks to support technological interventions. The high costs of digital elections were acknowledged, but framed as potentially worthwhile investments to prevent post-election violence and instability.

Panelists recommended continued experimentation with digital tools while being realistic about challenges. They emphasized the need for African countries to learn from each other’s experiences to avoid repeating mistakes. The discussion concluded that while digital technology offers significant potential to improve African elections, its implementation must be carefully managed to truly enhance democratic processes rather than creating new problems.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– The benefits and challenges of using digital technology in African elections, including increased efficiency but also high costs and cybersecurity risks

– The importance of building trust in electoral systems and processes when implementing new technologies

– The need for a hybrid approach combining digital and manual processes, given infrastructure limitations in many African countries

– The role of voter registration and ID systems in enabling or potentially hindering electoral participation

– How emerging technologies like AI and blockchain could potentially improve election integrity in the future

The overall purpose of the discussion was to explore the costs, benefits, and future potential of digital technology in African elections, bringing together experts to share experiences and insights from different countries.

The tone of the discussion was generally optimistic about the potential of technology to improve elections, while also being realistic about the challenges and need for caution. Panelists emphasized the importance of taking an incremental approach and adapting solutions to local contexts. The tone remained constructive and solution-oriented throughout.

Speakers

– Katherine Getao: Moderator

– Mwende Njiraini: African Initiative Coordinator at Diplo Foundation

– Eliud Kibii: Journalist, political analyst and editor

– Scott Timcke: Senior research associate at Research ICT Africa, affiliated with University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

– James Olabode: Expert in artificial intelligence and machine learning, worked on elections in multiple countries

– Ibrahim Lawal Ahmed: Senior research officer at Savannah Center for Diplomacy, Democracy and Development

Additional speakers:

– Willis Onyango: Executive director of the Youth Cafe (mentioned but did not speak)

– Mohamed: Participant from Somaliland who shared about their biometric voter registration system

Digital Technology in African Elections: Opportunities and Challenges

This webinar explored the costs and benefits of using digital technology in African elections, bringing together experts to share experiences and insights from different countries. The discussion was generally optimistic about the potential of technology to improve elections, while also being realistic about the challenges and need for caution.

Benefits and Challenges of Digital Technology in Elections

Panelists highlighted how digital technology can enhance the efficiency, transparency, and credibility of elections. Ibrahim Lawal Ahmed emphasized these potential benefits, while James Olabode noted that technology has helped reduce electoral fraud like ballot box snatching in Nigeria. Specific technologies discussed included biometric voter registration, electronic voting machines, and result transmission systems.

A participant from Somaliland, Mohamed, shared a concrete example of how biometric voter registration has enhanced credibility and reduced double voting in their country. This implementation involved capturing fingerprints and facial images, which significantly improved the integrity of the voter register.

However, the discussion also acknowledged significant challenges. Katherine Getao raised concerns about the financial costs, cybersecurity risks, and potential disenfranchisement associated with digital election technologies. Ibrahim Lawal Ahmed provided specific figures, noting that Nigeria spent over 300 billion naira (approximately $400 million) on technology for the 2023 election.

Eliud Kibii pointed out that infrastructure and capacity challenges make full digitization impractical for many African countries. This led to a consensus that a hybrid approach, combining manual and digital methods, may be most appropriate given the current limitations.

Building Trust in Electoral Processes

A key theme that emerged was the importance of building trust in electoral systems when implementing new technologies. James Olabode stressed that countries need to build trust in electoral processes before introducing new technologies, stating, “Digital technology application is a lot about trust. A country can spend a lot of money, but if the people don’t trust the processes, it becomes a waste.”

Scott Timcke added nuance to this point, arguing that technology alone cannot solve fundamental political issues and that institutional strength is key. He emphasized the importance of data protection and access to information laws in building public confidence in digital election systems.

Eliud Kibii concurred, emphasizing that improving overall governance systems is necessary to build confidence in elections. He also highlighted the role of social media and information bubbles in shaping public perception of electoral processes.

There was agreement that technology choices should be adapted to local contexts and infrastructure, as highlighted by Ibrahim Lawal Ahmed. This context-specific approach was seen as crucial for building public trust and ensuring the effectiveness of digital solutions.

The Future of Election Technology in Africa

Despite the challenges, there was a surprising consensus on the need for continued ambition in adopting digital election technologies. James Olabode advocated for African countries to continue being ambitious, while Ibrahim Lawal Ahmed suggested a step-by-step approach to digitizing different parts of the electoral process.

However, this optimism was tempered by caution. Scott Timcke warned that the stakes are too high to use elections as experimentation grounds for new technologies. Eliud Kibii stressed that building necessary infrastructure like power and internet access should be a priority before full digitization can be achieved.

Katherine Getao suggested that more sharing of experiences between African countries can help avoid repeating mistakes, emphasizing the need for a collaborative approach to improving election technologies across the continent.

Emerging Technologies and Specific Challenges

The discussion touched on the potential of emerging technologies like AI and blockchain to improve election integrity. However, Scott Timcke cautioned against using “AI” as a catch-all term, urging for more precise language when discussing different types of election technologies.

Cybersecurity emerged as a major concern, with Ibrahim Lawal Ahmed sharing a striking example from Nigeria’s 2023 election where the electoral management body’s portal was attacked over 3.8 million times in less than 24 hours. This highlighted the scale of cybersecurity challenges facing digital election systems.

The role of national ID systems in voter registration was also discussed, with James Olabode suggesting this could increase inclusiveness and reduce disenfranchisement compared to separate voter ID systems.

Conclusion

The webinar concluded that while digital technology offers significant potential to improve African elections, its implementation must be carefully managed to truly enhance democratic processes rather than creating new problems. The experts emphasized the need for a gradual, context-specific approach to implementing digital solutions, underpinned by strong data protection laws and institutional frameworks.

Key takeaways included the need to balance ambition with realism, prioritize trust-building and infrastructure development, and continue sharing experiences between African countries. James Olabode stressed the importance of continuous preparation for elections, not just during election periods.

As African countries continue to explore and implement digital election technologies, this discussion provided valuable insights into the complex interplay of technological, social, and political factors that must be considered to ensure that digitization truly enhances democratic processes across the continent.

Mwende Njiraini: Okay, good morning, good afternoon and good evening, dear colleagues, thank you for joining us for this webinar. Today, we’re going to explore the costs and the benefits of using digital technology for elections in Africa. I think this is a very timely topic, given that most African countries are in since last year, and this year have been wanting to have elections or are scheduled to have elections or already had elections. And therefore have been exploring the issue of technology to assist in the election process. So recording in progress. Just give me a minute. So yes, as I was saying in the recent years, the adoption of digital technology in electoral processes has gained momentum across Africa. Countries have increasingly turned to digital solutions to enhance the efficiency, the transparency and the credibility of elections. Technologies such as biometric voter registration, electronic voting, and digital platforms for voter education, as well as election monitoring have been implemented in various degrees. with various degrees of success. However, the use of digital technology in elections also raises concerns, including financial costs, the risk of cyber security or cyber security risks, and the potential of disenfranchisement. So, we are going to explore how African countries continue to implement digital technologies in their electoral processes. And it’s important for us to assess the cost and the benefits to ensure that innovations contribute positively to the democratic process. So, in this webinar, we aim to bring together, we have brought experts, policy makers and stakeholders to discuss the impact of digital technology on elections in Africa, weighing its advantages against the challenges it presents. So, I welcome you all to this session. Thank you for making the time to join us. And thank you too for your patience. We had a challenge with the timings, but we are all here and are grateful that you have joined us. So, my name is Mwende Njiraini. I’m the African Initiative Coordinator at Diplo Foundation. And I invite you to this webinar very warmly and ask that you ask as many questions as you can to the panelists who are distinguished panelists who have joined us today. So, feel free to ask questions. You can type them on the chat and then we can proceed from there. So, now I’d like to invite the moderator of this session, Dr. Catherine Getao, who is going to guide us. And before she comes in, I would like to introduce panelists. And so among our panelists are Ibrahim Lawal Ahmed. Mr. Ibrahim. Mr. Ibrahim is a senior research officer and personal assistant to the founder and chairman of Savannah Center for Diplomacy, Democracy and Development, an Abuja based NGO and think tank with a track record of research, advocacy, training, and program execution on foreign policy, peace and security, and good governance. He was a special assistant on development policy to the immediate past president of Nigeria, Muhammad Buhari, where he was involved in policymaking, policy coordination on matters related to agriculture and food security, water resources, education, science and technology, labor and industrial actions, bilateral economic relations and police reform. His research interests are in areas of political economy, philosophy, history, and international relations. He is grounded in political science, administration, and development policy. So welcome very much, Mr. Ibrahim. Thank you. Then we have James. James is an expert in artificial intelligence. He has a doctorate in artificial intelligence and machine learning, a master’s degree in artificial intelligence and machine learning, a master’s in finance, financial engineering, is a Google certified Data Engineer and an AI machine learning mentor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Texas in Austin, Deakin University, Australia. He’s a data science expert at Kaggle, which is a Google AI and experimental platform for data scientists and he works around issues to do with market models, fintech, economic models, governance and policy models, health models and educational models. So thank you and welcome, James. Then we have Dr. Scott Timcke. Dr. Scott Timcke is a PhD from Simon Fraser University. He is a senior research associate at the Research ICT Africa where he oversees information integrity program. He’s also affiliated to the Center of Information Technology and Public Life at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His third book, which is The Political Economy of Fortune and Misfortune, Prospects of Prosperity in Our Times, was released in March 2023. Welcome, Dr. Scott. Thank you very much for your warm greeting. Yes, then we have Willis Onyango. Willis Onyango represents the youth wherever he goes. So Willis Onyango is the executive director of the Youth Cafe, an award-winning Pan-African youth association based in Kenya. He’s a visionary leader. He has a bachelor’s degree in International Diplomacy, he has also completed the Civic Leadership Institute at Kansas State University as part of the President Barack Obama’s Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders. Mr. Onyang’o is the author of the Kenya Youth Manifesto, a non-partisan publication that unified the aspirations of Kenya youth. He is also a published columnist for several prominent news outlets, including the Star Newspaper, the Standard Newspaper, and Huffington Post, and Open Democracy and the World Economic Forum. He was born and raised in Kenya, and his passion for youth development stems from his experience growing up in a disadvantaged community. He is committed to ensuring that young people have access to resources that they need to succeed. Willis currently serves on the board of the Global Fund for Children and other local and international boards. So welcome, Mr. Willis. Finally, we have Eliud Kibii. Eliud is an accredited journalist by the Media Council of Kenya, a political, international and diplomacy writer, analyst, and editor with close to 10 years’ experience in print and digital media. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Relations and Diplomacy from the Technical University of Kenya. in Nairobi, and a master’s degree in international relations from the China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing. He is a certified public accountant, Section 2 certification, and is a Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue 2022 Fellow. Welcome Eliud. So with that, I think we have finished the introductions. Yeah, thank you so much all the panelists for joining us. We’ll now, I can now ask Dr. Katherine Getao to take over.

Katherine Getao: Thank you very much. Okay, so good afternoon everyone. Welcome to our distinguished panelists and also to each and every guest who has logged on to this webinar. We’re very excited to talk about this topic, which I think is very, very pertinent towards democracy in the future, and to have a wide range of panelists who have technical backgrounds, governance backgrounds, communication, and academics. So I believe we’re going to get a very, very rounded view of how this technology can transform voting and democracy in Africa. So I’d kindly ask everyone who is not speaking to, as usual, mute their mics. We may have an issue later because Kenya has become extremely wet during this season. So if you do see the quality of the connection deteriorating, you can just use the audio and switch off the video to reduce the bandwidth required. Otherwise, I’ll just get Thank you so much for joining us. We’re going to get into it. The panelists will have around 50 minutes. And then after that, we can interact with the audience. And please put your questions in the chat. And I would also kindly ask each panelist to occasionally look at the chat and see if there are any questions of interest. Without much further ado, I’ll invite our panelists, beginning with Ibrahim, to tell us a little bit about what you have observed about electronic voting around Africa, especially in any region where you may have intimate knowledge. And give us an idea of what the benefits are and what could some of the costs or some of the risks or things that have actually happened just to set us off on this journey. Ibrahim, please go ahead.

Ibrahim Lawal Ahmed: Thank you very much, Katherine. Thank you, everyone. My name is Ibrahim, as she stated. So I’m based in Nigeria. And to me, that’s a very good question for me to speak about what I observe with electronic voting. And I will start with, shall I say a story or a reflection? So in a state in Nigeria, I won’t mention the name of the state. In 2019, the governor of the state, for the first time in Nigeria, introduced an electronic voting machine in the local government election. That’s the first time in Nigeria. There are many processes, you know, of election. Registration, accreditation. So in Nigeria, usually registration and accreditation are electronic, but the voting is usually paper, manual. But that governor for the first time in 2019, I’m sorry, 2018 introduced that. And what did I observe? First, it addressed the issue about invalid vote. So there is no invalid vote. However, there was an error, very terrible error with that machine, which is if you can just keep clicking a party, particular party, and no matter how much you as a person click, it will just keep counting. So it’s like a counter. That’s what the machine is. It doesn’t have any sophistication to kind of restrict the person that will do the clicking, which is very, very important, which is very, very important in securing the election. So that’s something that comes to my mind right now. And it brings out a weakness, because the essence of technology is to address a problem. That’s the essence of technology, whether that technology is digital or not digital. And particularly, and especially, the essence of digital technology is really to address the modern society problem. There’s a saying that if you have a piece with a problem in this modern day, digitize it. So by digitizing the button, if I look at it from that way, because not much attention probably has been put, not much policy, reflection has been put. There was a fundamental weakness, a flaw in the tool, which instead of solving the problem, it compounded the problem. So this point out that the issue about election, three pillars are very important. The people, the process, and the technology itself, they have to tally and they have to balance among these three processes. Now, maybe speak much more about that when the discussion continues, but let me also touch about another issue of technology. One of the complaints about election, probably everywhere in Africa, but in Nigeria is very, very particular, is rigging the election, electoral rigging. Usually the opposition or any party that loses the election never believe that it lose preamble, it believes that there was some malpractice. So the advocacy about introducing digital technology in the process of election, whether in accreditation, with the political party registrations, driven most about by to address that rigging, to minimize it. So in Nigeria, the kind of first breakthrough in terms of technology started in 2011, with the introduction of a smart card reader, whereby you have to be verified, accredited electronically, and that is saved in the server of the electoral management body. And then you bought. Therefore, only those, the number of voters will tally with the number of accredited people or accredited voters. So you cannot try to manipulate. to have a number of ballot box bots more than the number of accredited people or people that came to vote. So that’s when it started. We use it in 2011, sorry, in 2015. And then we use it, it was improved to Z-Pad in 20, around 2019. And then in 2021, there was this bi-model voter accreditation system that was introduced. And the technology is that it is used to register a voter, one, then during voting it is used to accredit a voter, and then it is used to transmit result to the portal of the electoral management body in Nigeria. Now in 2023, we try to deepen our, the involvement of digital technology in Nigeria. And there was a lot of advocacy whereby the idea was the voter will be transmitted in real time, in real time. And, but now let me talk that this is where the issue is, this is where the problem is for the government, because there’s a lot of advocacy for that. The budget presented by the electoral management body to, not only to the national, in part they presented to president, they wanted an intervention, a presidential intervention, which is quite beyond their budget, is that they need 117,379,778,217 era, which is equivalent to approximately $255 million for the technology. The entire budget for conducting the election is around $772 million. Just for the technology part, it is taking $117 billion. That’s a very huge sum. Not all of that sum was released by the government, but a huge sum was released by the government. But unfortunately, we will say, yes, there was accreditation using technology valid. But the problem of that achieving real-time transmission of voting was not. Why? Why? I trace another problem because of a significant level of hiking. The level of hiking was, I think, during the general election, if I remember, in a few hours, the electoral management body was attacked more than 1,000 times. It has to, I think it collapsed. During the 2020 general election, I think about 4,000-plus attacks on the server, portal of the electoral management body in Nigeria was recorded. And this points out to a lot of my problems. First, from my so far what I have said, yes, indeed, technology can solve the problem of the election we are facing, particularly in terms of addressing. valid bot that your bot count. But however, it comes at a huge financial cost. It also require in terms of identifying the technology that require a lot of careful scrutiny to choose the right technology for the right environment. Because even in terms of sophistication, the knowledge, how literate are the people is another issue. So the technology to be choose, it require a lot of scrutiny. And third, which is a very, very important thing is that it has to be the process of digitization, the electoral process, and involvement of the technology. We have to watch out for threat of cyber attacks. It happens and it can completely disrupt the whole election. So I will stop here and listen to my other colleagues about their observation. I hope I say something. Thank you. Back to you Ma.

Katherine Getao: Yes, thank you so much, Ibrahim. You’ve shown us some very practical benefits in terms of voter registration and people not being able to vote twice, but they can double click. And also the risks and the financial costs. So I’ll move on to Scott now, because, of course, we admire the US as one of the most developed countries in the world. And we’d like to hear your experience. I know there’s a level of automation in the US election, but there are also some things that remain manual. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about what the how things are done. and also what have been the observed risks and benefits of the technology.

Scott Timcke: Great, thank you very much. So just before I jump into answering the substance of that question, I just wanted to say that the remarks that I’m making today are also building upon some of the work that my colleagues and I have done over the last two or three years at Research ICT Africa. So there are others such as Zahra Schrodinger, Guy Berger, Liz Arembo and Hanane Klamini who also very important collaborators in developing some of the perspectives that I’m going to bring today. I think it’s very valuable that we start with some questions of principles and sort of the African endorsement of elections. The Declaration on the Principles Governing Democratic Elections in Africa, the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and the Guidelines on Access to Information in Elections in Africa demonstrate that there’s strong African commitments to fair elections and that these represent the cornerstone of democratic governance, serving as junctures where democratic practices are tested and reinforced. There’s some other matters that we also need to put on the table and that’s around what does a credible fair election require and so there are numerous components to this but the four elementary particles or the four elementary elements involve universal adult suffrage, equal voter weighting, representative institutions and freedom from state interference in political expression. These are core fundamental democratic principles whether it be electoral competition, political legitimacy through public participation, equality of citizenship and peaceful transition of power. So whenever we start to look at any technological intervention, whether it be AI or biometrics or anything else for that matter, these are ultimately the criteria that it needs to be assessed against. How does it help ensure greater electoral competition? How does it help ensure further public participation? Does it help with legitimizing transfers of power? Is there a way that it can limit or buffer state coercion? Now, more broadly looking at the landscape in the global north, we see that there are established institutions that have decades of experience working and managing electoral processes. To me, the key element over here is recognizing that democracy is a learned practice, that it’s something that states and society becomes better at the more often that they participate, the more often they hold elections. So, when you start to incorporate technology into those electoral processes, they already come with a groundswell of institutional knowledge and a consolidated institutional practice. Now, we know that Africa has emerged out of the despotic era, out of state authoritarianism in the 80s, 90s and the like, coming out of cold war politics. And there are many societies on the continent that are still learning their practice when it comes to democracy. I don’t think we should view these as failed democratic aspirations, but more that we need to have reasonable expectations about how institutions are learning to conduct legitimate elections. And while technology may be useful to help with that practice, ultimately it’s our institutional strength that is going to help determine our election integrity. I’m going to say one last other thing before passing the baton back. back to my panelists, and that is we can’t necessarily take a view that the relationship between AI and democratic outcomes is straightforward. It’s a complicated, multifaceted approach, but ultimately it is overdetermined by complex social, historical, political processes. So we cannot imagine for a moment that AI is going to solve social divisions or that we can have a technological solution to fundamental political questions. There are certainly ways in which technology can help intervene to try to clarify stakes, to help provide fairer mechanisms, but ultimately we need to be attentive to history and institutional development. Unless technology is understood from within this paradigm, ultimately most of our technological interventions will likely fail. Thank you very much, and I’m going to pass the baton back. Thank you.

Katherine Getao: Thank you very much, Scott, for keeping us grounded that the technology has to meet the same requirements of democracy and successful elections. That helps us have a measure of what technology must maintain and achieve. I’ll now move to Willis. In Kenya, we’re very careful of our agencies. So, Willis, your generation are really tech-savvy and they’re really very, very frequent users of technology. Dr. Kitau? Yes? Sorry to interrupt. We don’t have Willis in the room at the moment. Yeah. Oh, he’s dropped out. No, he hasn’t logged in yet. Oh, okay. So, So let me then quickly move to Eliud, who may be able to guide us on the same issues. So Eliud, really the same question. We’ve seen how vibrant the Gen Zs have been on the space of social media and their interest in civic affairs, which I think is exemplary. Give us some idea of how you think that voting electronically or electronic processes would either include or exclude our youth, or empower them or disempower them. How do you see the youth interacting with electronic technology in the voting space?

Eliud Kibii: Thank you for the opportunity. So yes, I think there’s two ways to look at it. Looking at how technology is actually used in the Kenyan election. So essentially, we are not fully on board electronically, because so far where technology is applied is in voter registration through the biometric voter registration platform, as well as voter identification. This is where you use the facial fingerprint or your ID number to identify yourself as a voter at the polling station. And where it’s partially electronic is the transmission of the results from the polling station. And all these processes have a manual backup, because if the electronic or the BVR is not able to identify you. then the clerk has to revert back to the manual voter register, which is used as a backup. Now, looking at that context is, of course, we have seen, and I was looking at the report by the US Congress that in the past, we have not seen the youth very enthusiastic with political processes, one of the elections. And most of them, if you go around, you know, they say they do not vote. The reason is maybe there’s no interest or they don’t have a candidate to vote. But then since the Gen Z protest or the Gen Z revolution of 24 June, there’s a lot of active political, you know, activeness among the youth and we are seeing this a lot through one, social media platforms. We also see a lot of that in the mainstream media where there’s a group of young people who are coalescing and becoming very critical in the decision that the political players historically who have been there for a long time are considering as they prepare for the election of 2027. So to now respond that, I think then, expanding that space and allowing them to participate using the technological platforms that are available, then you would see a lot of engagements. But then there’s a disadvantage towards these because technology comes with other supporting infrastructure. One of this is internet, for example, and for you to use internet, of course, there is most of it then needs to come with power. Then if you, you know, you stop power for a short period, then the capturing of the so many other areas outside the urban areas, then we would see some exclusion of young people who would like to participate electronically. So to answer your question is. When those systems failed, then there were the questions of the integrity of the election. So, I think the downward of it is the supporting infrastructure of technological voting, which is not spread equally across the country.

Katherine Getao: Thank you very much, Eliud, for bringing in that practical element that is supporting infrastructure for energy, which may lead to exclusion depending on where people live. I’ll probably follow up later with the idea of voter registration. And I think the youth often complain that they are not able to get the ID cards or the registration is somehow hampered. But for now, let me turn to James. And I confess that James was my mentor and my instructor when I was in school, even though I look much older than him. So, I’m very appreciative of James. So, James, you’ll handle two issues for us. One of them is the issue of data, because I can see you have a lot of qualifications and experience in that area. So, probably voter registration is one of the largest registration of adults in any country. And the handling of that data, I think, can be. quite explosive, especially since it’s linked with a very sensitive process. So you tell us a little bit about, you know, what you think about how that data could be handled, especially as it moves to the electronic space. A second thing is how emerging technology can assist us. I have a lot of hope for AI and all the emerging technology as being a way of mitigating the risks of voting and meeting the criteria that Scott talked about. Am I being naive? Do you see emerging technology as a boon or a bane for voting in future? Thank you, James.

James Olabode: All right. Thank you, Katherine. So those are very good questions. And I’m going to state this. Digital technology being used in any form of election in anywhere in the world, not just even Africa, it is a tremendous undertaking, just like you said, you know. And for countries that make such attempts, we should kind of give them some respite. We should give them some accolades, because it is usually a very big undertaking. So that said, generally there are always three parts. There’s a part of war upon pre-election. There’s also the part of what happened during election. And so there’s also the part of war upon post-election. And then for most African countries, it seems there’s always been a lot of success on pre, and then maybe little itches during election when equipment starts failing and all. But I know the first question you asked is around the handling of data, which is like something happening during pre-election and then at the point of transition. So I’m going to answer all those. And then I’m also going to make some references to I’m actually quite adept at the electioneering in Nigeria. This Ghana in this 2024 election, I was part of the team that assisted. And also, to some extent, I was also part of the research team that worked also on the American election. So there’s always a lot of peculiarities with African elections. And more so, I like the fact that Eliud mentioned something about infrastructure, and that is the truth. You know, for instance, Estonia is being lauded as like the pioneer of digital election in the whole world. But the question people miss is always, so what’s the population of Estonia? You know, there are less than 2 million. And so it is always easy to deploy technology at scale, achieve interesting results. A lot of African countries, maybe Nigeria, for instance, trying to deploy similar technology to tackle electioneering need of say like 96. It comes with a lot of responsibility. So there’s also the need for the process needs to be hybrid. More because the infrastructure is not yet there. So you need to allow for digital and then manual handling of the data. And I’m going to repeat that digital and the manual handling of the data. And just like Eliud also mentioned, there needs to be like a backup. So what about if digital fails, considering the fact that there’s not a robust digital infrastructure to handle the undertaking? So you need to be able to fall back to the digital. Of course, the concern is always like each of the countries is their data protection law. You know, there was something I’m actually aware of. For instance, I think it was in 2011, the data of almost all the participants of a Nigerian election was actually leaked online. So it is something you could buy. And that is bad. I’m happy. There’s a tremendous progress from 2011 to now. Now you can’t get it anymore online, which is good. So country first needs to start with having very good, solid. data protection law. How do you undo this? So that’s, you create a framework and then you let your electionary agencies to key into that. That way there will be success. Also with respect to emerging technology. Interesting thing is like election and use of digital technology in election is all about trust building. And I’m going to be sincere with you. This is my domain where I deploy a lot of AI tools. You know, I try to attend to needs of government agencies and, you know, at scale. Digital technology application is a lot about trust. A country can spend a lot of money, but if the people don’t trust the processes, it becomes a waste. So countries first need to build trust. They need to trust the process. You know, when they trust the process, any use or application of digital technology, you know, would then be embraced such that the cost justifies the means. So like Ibrahim mentioned something about Nigerian spending and budgeting around $700 million for the last election. That was the truth. But then of course, you know, there was a lot of enthusiasm. The Nigerian election succeeded tremendously on the pre-election. It succeeded during electioneering. At least it solved the problem. No one can go to polling units, carry a ballot box and start running away with it. It was pointless. You know, but then where it failed was transmission. And for me as a researcher, it is a plus. There are like three points of failure. At least this time around, there’s one. So that represent progress. So countries should not be afraid to embrace digital technology. You know, there will be mishaps. There will be failure, but it represent progress. I know for instance, so the last part about the emerging tech will be the use of blockchain to be able to tackle a whole lot of the issues around hacking and transmission and cybersecurity issues, which is also an issue faced by almost every country that wants to go digital. Brazil faced it. Estonia, that is Estonia also faced it. So blockchain will effectively help in tackling a whole lot of such. But then it comes to also building. The use of AI took an effective help in tackling the cyber attacks, you know, but you must be aware of the fact that this comes at a cost. The cost is that countries must not try preparing for election a year to eat. You need to start preparing like maybe four years, it needs to be continuous process. And I’ll also make reference to this. So something else happened in Nigerian election was the Nigerian team were too ambitious. You know, they were trying to achieve so much within the space of a year and a half, you know, tackling pre-election, tackle post-election, tackle during election, but then without accounting effectively for that, there can be a fault somewhere, which is through that transmission. So at the end of the day, when deploying and appreciating emerging tech, it needs to be continuous. It shouldn’t be something you try doing deploying a year to election, there’s going to be failure. So that continuous deployment, you know, to tackle the scale problem is what I believe a lot of countries should adopt.

Katherine Getao: OK, thank you very much. Yes, and of course, the scale is massive. I can imagine in a country like Nigeria that’s handling, you know, more than 100 million records in real time cannot be easy. Now, I love the word trust because I think whether the elections are manual or electronic, having each citizen believe that their vote counted and having each citizen believe that the result that has been transmitted is the correct one lies at the heart of a successful election. So I’ll go back to Scott and then I’ll follow with Ibrahim on this issue of trust and ask of maybe, I don’t know whether it’s a simple or a complex question, that do you think that digital technology is increasing? How can we help nations to use digital technology to increase trust in elections? I’ll start with Scott and I’ll probably have the same question for Ibrahim.

Scott Timcke: Thank you very much for that question. To me I think we need to undertake a few things here. One is we need to disaggregate the types of technological systems that we’re talking about. At the moment we tend to use AI as a placeholder for a variety of different types of vending options and different types of statistical analysis that’s taking place in and around elections. So we have things all the way from platforms and how platforms spread information within a public sphere to the type of electronic voting machines that may or may not be adopted in a particular election itself. All the types of transmission and database services that are carrying on the back end. So I think when it comes to questions of trust we need to look at what type of elements are we talking about trust and more importantly here what are we trusting with what element. So for example do we trust the platforms to have responsible policies during the election process and is this backed by law and are the regulators that are going to enforce standards around election times for example data regulators or information regulators. That gets back to my previous point about institutions. Or are we talking a little bit about the electronic voting machines that have paper records that can be verified and audited at a later date. So those have different types of… there are different types of things that you’re trying to trust within that larger process. To me, the larger unifying principle between all these different elements turns on access to information and access to data, regulations and laws. This allows civil society actors, scholars, academics and regulators to be able to intervene and understand better what’s going on in the whole information landscape. For example, access to information laws or access to data laws that compel private companies, maybe even multinational private companies, platform companies, to disclose what’s going on for content circulated within a country during election time would be incredibly useful to help support trustworthy processes. Otherwise, what we’re really doing is we’re just having blind trust, and I don’t think blind trust is very useful. So simply to recap over here, we need to very much disentangle what we… our language over here to be much more specific about what elements in the electoral system that we’re trusting. But regardless of this or that technology or this or that institution or this or that country, access to data, access to information laws and regulations are incredibly useful for civil society actors, journalists, academics, regulators to be able to have the mandate and support to be able to go and undertake proactive investigations so that we have a sound basis for trustworthy elections. Thank you very much. I’m going to pass the baton along.

Katherine Getao: Okay, thank you so much, Scott. And maybe just moving along from what Scott has raised, Ibrahim, you’re the one who brought up the word rigging, which is a very common word in elections, not only in Nigeria, but also here in Kenya and other parts of Africa. And I think rigging is what the ordinary citizen talks about when they are concerned about whether an election is trustworthy or not. Maybe you can just tell us, because you gave us a few examples at the state level and at the national level in Nigeria of the use of technology. And maybe, you know, without context, just answer the part that has technology helped or has it hurt when it has come to people suspecting that elections have been rigged or otherwise. Thank you, Ibrahim.

Ibrahim Lawal Ahmed: Thank you. It’s a very difficult question to answer, but it’s a very, very good question and a very good point by James, the issue about trust. I think not only in every aspect of policymaking, trust is very, very vital to success. But I would like to look at it in terms of electoral processes and different technologies applied and then see, just reflect on the people trust on those issues. Now, take, for example, the earlier example I gave on the electronic voting machine. Obviously, after that election, that local government election, I don’t think any states or even at national level have tried to use that electronic voting machine because people no longer trust it. And it exposes a fundamental flaw in the machine. that one person can just keep clicking a particular party, the machine won’t know, it cannot verify, it will just keep counting and recording. So, after that, I think at that level, in terms of botting machine, people are a bit skeptical. Now, in another process, in terms of accreditation, since 2011, that, sorry, 2015, that it started, people have, like, really come to really trust the smart card reader and verification tools, like we have this one, DIVAS, recent one, in terms of election, and people trust in terms of the number of voters, even if there will be a problem, if there will be any manipulation, the number of voters in total will not be more than the dose of accreditation during the election. So, at that process of accreditation and the machine, people really, in Nigeria, really, really trust it. Overall, overall, over the years, with improvement and changes, I think, particularly in Nigeria, people are beginning to trust the machines, the digital technologies being involved. And even the reason why it has been pushed for, because people are not trusting human involvement in the process, and they think the excessive human involvement in the election is what is causing problems, why they are saying that there is rigging, whether it’s true or not. So, overall, I think there is that increasing trust. However, it comes with, what do I say, with an ambivalence. Right? Because, permit me to correct the figures I earlier stated I verified about cyber attack in 2023 election. So actually, the electoral management body, the portal, during the, I think, presidential election, it was attacked 3,834,244 times in just one day, in less than 24 hours. And after the whole election process, I think in two weeks, the whole government website, particularly the electoral management body experienced about 12.9 million attacks, cyber attack. So it stole the process and stopped the whole process of transmission of result in real time. And it shows to the people, to the common people, because most people are not very cumbersome with technology. Even me, that I’m speaking, I’m still learning. And the technology is improving as you get to understand this version or this level, before you know it, it has moved to another level. As you get familiar with window 10, it moved to window 11. So it is quite, quite complex. And it exposed to people that this technology is not impalpable, it’s not, it can be tempered. However, I think overall, overall, in Nigeria, I can speak for that, in Nigeria, there is improvement, increasing trust in terms of using digital technology in election process. Thank you.

Katherine Getao: Okay, thank you very much for that, that people can trust. or even Overtrust Technology rather than people. And I hope this trust is deserved. Now, I’ll quickly move to Eliud. As I had said, I have an interest in the aspect at least of voter registration, particularly of youth because they’re the group who normally attain their majority of 18 years and they need to register as voters so that they can participate. And I think in previous times, there have been allegations of apathy on the part of the youth that they just didn’t register even though the opportunity was there. But now we’re seeing they’re very keen to register. How do you see technology helping or hindering the desire of youth to participate? And I think that was the first principle or pillar that Scott said, this universal suffrage that everybody who has the right to vote should vote. But of course, if they’re not registered, they’re not able to participate. The second thing maybe I’d like you to start touching on is the issue of social media and the way that it polarizes opinions because most people are able to put themselves into a kind of information bubble. As journalists, how are you seeing that we could improve information in such a way that people are not caught up in a bubble where their existing views are reinforced and they don’t have to listen to the other side? So I’ll stop there. Please tell us a little bit about those two issues.

Eliud Kibii: Thank you so much for those questions. So, technology and participation. I’ll start with where my colleague panelist has left, and it’s the issue of trust. What we have seen, and you had mentioned the issue of voter registration, and Drigging is a word that has come up in the discussion. Now, in Kenya’s context, elections are dripped just after holding the ones that are concluded, and this starts with voter registration. Not just voter registration, but voter registration, and as you mentioned, this starts with, you have to have an ID card for you to register as a voter. Now, Kenya’s voting patterns are based on, you could say, tribes, because most of the regions in Kenya, you know, there are certain communities that inhabit certain regions. And now, how the rigging process would start is, if, for example, there’s an incumbency, and then seeing that they might be unpopular in certain regions, then you hear complaints that we are not able to get our IDs, because that’s how it starts. Or the registration of IDs is politicized in a way, for example, in Kenya’s case, there’s all this debate of whether the amount that, if you actually need to pay to get an ID card, and if you have to pay, how much then are you supposed to pay? So this conversation, or this, you know, push and pull continues, and there are certain regions that historically have also been marginalized in access of these IDs. So from that point, you hear… The infrastructure, the personnel, the time that is given and the technology that is deployed to register these voters is also skewed in a certain way, where possibly where you are popular then there is more focus or more deployment of staff and registration kits. Some areas where you think then you are not popular then there is a limit of that. And now coming to your question is I think then the Gen Z who most of them might not have taken the IDs because we are looking at maybe two years time to be in an election, those who would have qualified to be voters might find that challenge. Those who had the IDs but had not registered then might also have a challenge because I think there will be an overwhelming interest in voting so that might overwhelm even if the game was fair to work well the situation. Already we are seeing that the Kenyan election, the cost of election was mentioned here, Kenyan election is among the most expensive in Africa. I was looking at the last election was Kenyan shillings 45 billion, that’s almost 350 million dollars. So that cost then we see a push and tug around that. So the registration of new voters might find that challenge. And your second question is Ibrahim Lawal Ahmed, James Olabode, Scott Timcke, Katherine Getao, Mwende Njiraini, Eliud Kibii Ibrahim Lawal Ahmed, James Olabode, Scott Timcke, Katherine Getao, Mwende Njiraini, Eliud Kibii Ibrahim Lawal Ahmed, James Olabode, Scott Timcke, Katherine Getao, Mwende Njiraini, Eliud Kibii Ibrahim Lawal Ahmed, James Olabode, Scott Timcke, Katherine Getao, Mwende Njiraini, Eliud Kibii Ibrahim Lawal Ahmed, James Olabode, Scott Timcke, Katherine Getao, Mwende Njiraini, Eliud Kibii what then that needs to be done, because in Kenya we have an issue of the delayed appointment of the Electoral Commissioner. I have witnessed the CEO of the Commission coming out and explaining what needs to be done and what will be their priority areas when the Commissioner or the Commission is in place. So, I think different media, and of course mainstream media, has also provided platforms where different players in the political scene or in the election preparations have had panel discussions as well. We have explainers as well, an explainer which tries to, for example, what do you need to do so that you can actually go and vote. This might be an obvious thing, but it’s not obvious to all people, given where the people are, level of education and also the level of exposure. So, those are some of the ways I think social media… technology and of course the mainstream media can contribute to the electoral processes.

Katherine Getao: Thank you very much Eliud for giving us quite a bit of enlightenment of how things are in Kenya. For those who are not Kenyan, vernacular means the local languages. We have, well it depends how you define it, but we have between 53 and 80 Kenyan local languages and the radio stations have been able to transmit in many different languages for civic education and other types of information. So that’s what that was about. So please, I’ve only seen one or two questions in the chat. So in the next five minutes or so, I will be allowing our distinguished panelists to respond to your questions. So if you do have a question, please just type it in the chat as I turn to James. And James, I’m thinking about, you know, you talked about the different stages, the pre-election, the actual election and the post election. And you also talked about how technology has been successful in at least two of those stages and perhaps not so successful in the transmission of results. So I’d like to, because I think about this problem, which Eliud has just talked about, where you can deliberately target certain groups and fail to register them so that they do not participate in the election as they should. So… the universal suffrage pillar is not achieved deliberately. How do you see technology? I’m just wondering why should people have to register at all? Maybe just the day you are born as a citizen in the hospital or even at home, why is somebody not registered as a voter? So how could, how do you see the technology of the future making it possible not to carry out activities like voter suppression? And you know alongside that somebody has said in the chat that this just is not practical for Africa given our infrastructure challenges, our capacity challenges and other challenges. You are really an expert in this area and you’ve participated around the world. Do you really see this as being an insurmountable goal for Africa or are there ways in which we can leapfrog? Over to you James.

James Olabode: All right thank you for that Katherine. So this is my opinion and then more from observing the electionary processes in several places and then being part of research team evaluating you know some of the immediate impact and then the after effect. Now you’re right, you know there will always be that point whereby a certain group will feel disenfranchised and then that is without saying. Ultimately my belief is this that we get to a point in which you know also similar because for certain reasons, Estonia is a perfect model of what works and it kind of answers the question you pushed. In that at birth, almost everyone you have some form of digital ID and then so this digital ID kind of progresses up until the point you can vote and then also there’s no need to start creating a separate voter’s ID that can then you know which creates like a fault line the fault line would be this some group of people might decide to disenfranchise a certain group but imagine everybody that is born in a country you already have a digital ID and that digital ID or a national ID you know can then be transformed into a state you can use even during election I believe that will address that disenfranchisement problem that is being talked about and something remarkable and I think it’s something that is being pushed by the INEC in Nigeria is that hopefully we hope it is not going to also be because you know when with ambitious you know take on technology it also creates what you call a fault line so the INEC of Nigeria is hoping to be able to use a national ID as against a voter’s ID you know as a means for participation in election and I believe it is the right direction and I think that a lot of countries too should move away from the need for a specialized voter’s ID to an ID that whether you’re voting or you’re paying taxes or you want to buy a house or you want to access mortgage you know that ID always works you know that way there will be more inclusiveness and then no one will feel left behind. On the infrastructure challenge that is without saying and then the truth is the the cost or the financial take and I like what Eliud mentioned about I think it was Eliud and then or the previous speaker about the cost of the election the truth is this digital elections are tremendous undertaking so but it’s going to take a long time for there to be complete infrastructure overhaul you know it’s going to be digital like our old promise but then we should also kind of manage our expectation we shouldn’t expect technology to solve everything. We should be more open to the hybrid approach. We should allow manual in certain places where the infrastructure is not there. We should allow for storage of vote. This electronic voting machine, it stores the votes. And then when it gets to a point where you can transmit, then you can effectively transmit. And then when you are in places where infrastructure is there, you know, you are effectively able to transmit in real time. So I believe, you know, because you can’t really afford trying to overhaul the entire infrastructure because of election and trust in governance. It is important for us to kind of cut our coats according to what we have for places where there’s infrastructure, use technology to the fullest, for places where it is not there, use a manual approach and then just target it in such a way that you are adaptive. And my take on this is countries that are adaptive in their approach. And I think the US also does this, which is also allowance for, you know, mail-in voting. You know, the US is not going full-fledged and digital. But then it is remarkable that African technologies are very ambitious. You know, so an hybrid approach that allows for a whole lot of methods, offline approach, you know, digital approach, where the infrastructure is, I believe that’s the way to go.

Katherine Getao: Thank you very much, James. I would have loved to have another round of questions, but I can see that time is going. There’s Mohamed from Somaliland who says he would like to talk about the biometric voter registration. Please do enable Mohamed. But Mohamed, could I just limit you to around five minutes so that there’ll be time for the panelists to prepare the final round of comments? And please, panelists, as you prepare your final round, please scan the chat to see if there’s anything there that you can address. And then I will try to round up in good time. which will be in about 15 minutes time. So Mohamed, please go ahead and tell us what Somaliland has been doing. And as I said, I’d really appreciate gravity.

Participant: Okay, thank you for giving me this opportunity to share with you a very small experience about Somaliland and electronic elections. Actually, Somaliland has adopted biometric voter registration system in 2016, 2017. And that biometric voter registration system has been successful and has enhanced credibility of Somaliland elections. Actually, the presidential election in 2017, Somaliland piloted a biometric voter registration system with the support from international donors. The election is in 2021, and particularly the local elections, Somaliland again deployed biometric verification voter registration system, though the technical and logistical challenges arose, including delays in the voter card distributions. And this is one of the challenges that is still existing. And 2024, the recent presidential elections actually used also biometric verification, but not biometric voting system, because the technical capacity of the Somaliland National Electoral Commission. was not up to that level to use, you know, electronic election directory. Actually, this system has actually reduced the double voting, because Somalian electionists have been actually practicing since its establishment. But there has been, you know, frauds in the ballot elections because of the double voting. But biometric registration system actually prevented the duplicate or double voting. And last election, actually, it has been observed that, you know, biometric voter verification system by using scanners at the ballot station has significantly reduced, you know, double voting or other frauds related to election and ballot papers or ballot stations. But there has been a lot of challenges, technical challenges, issues like, you know, power outage. It used to happen and the internet connectivity problems because, you know, the connectivity is a problem in many African countries. And this, you know, happened in Somalia too. So some of the equipments, you know, malfunction and the technical capacity to troubleshoot was either very expensive or not available. And that actually could delay some of the ballot stations in Somalia. But actually, this system has enhanced public trust and reduced political disputes over the election results and made more transparent. So the other thing I would like to mention is that there has been some security concerns related to data security concerns. Risk of hacking or misuse of the biometric data. was more likely to happen. And in this case, you know, Somalia also does not have data protection in place. And then you will, we were able to see some of the results of the elections that have been published or posted in the social media. And some of the people who have been, their pictures posted by the social media and other fake, you know, information that has been, you know, demonstrated and that has been circulating in the social media. So this is a short experience of Somalian, you know, biometric electionists. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to talk about that.

Katherine Getao: Thank you very much, Mohamed. Actually, that gives us a lot of hope. And just combined with James’ remarks, there are parts of the process that can be successfully implemented, even in countries that don’t have, you know, a lot of technical or other resources. Thank you for that, Mohamed. You’re welcome. Now, yes, we’re just going into our final round. And I’d ask each panelist to tell us what they see as the future of technology in elections, either the pre-phase or in the actual administration of elections or following elections. And what can Africa do, since we’ve been asked to have a reality check that this is quite a challenging undertaking, very expensive. But of course, nothing is more expensive than post-election violence, as we have seen. in several countries, including Kenya. So yes, the price tag is huge. But if it can help people have faith in leadership, and not fight and kill each other after elections, then it is invaluable. So the last round of questions I haven’t, I can see there are some new comments in the chat. So please have a look and just address anything there that has touched you. And I trust we’ll have more chats like this. If there’s anyone in the audience who would like to be a panelist in future, or who would like to suggest a topic, please do contact us through the Diplo portal. There’s an Africa page where you can get in touch and tell us. You can also see previous panels, we’ve had about, I think, five in the past. So you can watch those and you can see the discussions that have been there. But we’re always very keen to get suggestions from our colleagues around Africa, about what they would like to talk about and what they’d like to see. So I’ll start the other way from how we started. So James, you have the honour of being the first person to tell us

James Olabode: what your parting shot is. Thank you for that, Catherine. So mine would be this. We should continue to be ambitious with use of digital technology. We should not be afraid to use of digital technology. We should not be afraid of trying them. Because of the scale, we should also expect lapses and failure here and there, which represent points we can learn from and then build on. Because ultimately, it is the only way towards we building a society in which we have tremendous trust in their governance processes. I do not see like an alternative. We have to keep using them, we have to keep experimenting, we have to also continue to be ambitious. Thank you.

Katherine Getao: Thank you for that short and sweet rejoinder, James. Now I’ll turn to Eliud with the same issue. What is your parting shot? What do you advise us for the future?

Eliud Kibii: Thank you. So I think we have to be realistic. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who visited just one of the countries in Africa and was surprised that they don’t even have a proper one tax collection system and secondly a pension system. And I think this is reflected in very many other countries. And of course, as I mentioned, what we need first are the systems. Other systems have to work, other governance systems have to work. And with that then you build on the trust and confidence in the systems. Kenya has tried and in 2007 we had instances where returning officers would disappear with the results from the polling station, people would disappear with the ballot boxes. But now that has increasingly changed, where now electoral transmission of the result has a backup or is seen as the more trustworthy process. But still we are seeing politicians still going to the courts and petitioning the processes. We saw that in 2017 in Kenya there was a nullification of the election and the courts were very clear that the process was more important than the How do you end up with the results? And now that takes me to the last point is the use of technology comes with other, you know, disadvantages and these are equipment that are vulnerable to abuse, manipulation by people and of course theft, and these will likely result in erroneous results and we have also seen issues of payment processes which have turned out to corrupt, you know, making a big cash out of these processes so I think my parting shot will be first we need to put our governance systems in place first so that we build on them, secondly we need to build the infrastructure I think how much access of power do our countries have in Africa? How much access to internet do our countries have in Africa? And how open space and information do the voters and the electronic have? So I think some of these are the things that we have to start from but it is not to discourage, you know, other administrations from getting into it but I think for it to have people’s confidence and trust it has to have a very firm foundation Yeah, thank you

Katherine Getao: Thank you, Eliud, and now I’ll just quickly turn to Scott Please give us your parting shot

Scott Timcke: Yes, thank you very much to the other panellists for raising some very important matters and also thank you very much for your very excellent moderation over here If anyone wishes to reach out and contact me they can look me up at Research ICT Africa My profile is there and I’m more than happy to converse about these and other matters I think we need to be very circumspect about what we mean by AI in elections. We need to disentangle because words can sometimes be a little bit too loaded and the goods in one area may in fact overlook the bads in another area. To me, elections and election integrity is two vital matter, particularly given Africa’s experiences where we have elections without democracy. We have leaders for life. We have competitive authoritarian regimes, to use a technical political science language, the stakes are simply too high to use our elections as experimentation grounds. Our key criteria for success over here should be to what extent can technology reinforce the principles that we care most deeply about, about universal franchise, public participation, so on and so forth. When we are looking at elections and technology, we must understand that this is a political process first, not a technological process. If we see this as a realm, if we are technologically centric over here, if we are only looking at the technology, we actually may be going to create more problems for us than the ones we hope to solve. Thank you very much. I’m going to pass it back.

Katherine Getao: Thank you, Scott. And now I’ll turn to Ibrahim. You had the first word, now you’re going to have almost the last word. Tell us, what is your parting shot after this discussion?

Ibrahim Lawal Ahmed: What an honour. So before that, I saw there was a question addressed to me by John Paul about what happened, how did the electoral management body in Nigeria manage the issue about cyber attack and transmission in the 2023 election? I simply said, we resorted to the manual or the old ways. where by the result was transmitted from the polling unit to the ward, to the ward, local government, local government, state, state, to the national level. Actually, that process was like, the traditional process was the one, was the busiest, was there. The transmission in real time was just a kind of a support, a kind of a check and it kind of fell, more or less. And my own take about the future of technology in election in Nigeria is that, yes, there is a future. We will see more digital technology introduced in many of the elections across Africa. But however, we have to, I think the key takeaway is that we have to put in mind whatever technology or choice we are going to make. We have to, the goal is to build trust, really. We have to build trust, the system. The election last year of Senegal is a very, very minor election, but you can see that people really trust the system. The election in India is not completely digitalized, but you can see also that people trust the system. Let’s take India, for example, how did they trust, how did they build that trust system is that they domesticated the technology. And how did they domesticated the technology is consider the environment. When they look at the environment, they look at the people, the infrastructure and the culture of the people. And even the process, they look at that. So in developing their own technology, it’s not very sophisticated technology. It’s almost a huge machine, a very huge machine, a box that they carry around, but it makes sure of certain things. One, each vote counts. Second, you cannot vote twice. So Indians kind of emphasize on that voting. It’s vote counts, and you cannot vote twice. And they take their time to conduct their election. It takes like one month or two months to conduct the election in India. In countries like Nigeria, 48 hours, 72 hours, you will hear the result. So context is very, very important in terms of the choices we make. And we are kind of ambitious, I quite agree with James. Sometimes we may not need to, we should be ambitious, but we should follow our ambition in terms of step by step. There are many processes to elections. We can start with digitizing the registration of political parties. We can start with a website, develop a website for electoral management bodies. We can go on to accreditation, then to even voting, then to transmission. We can take step by step. And it takes time, we have to be patient with the system. And the technology is not completely perfect. There is no perfect technology, it has to be improved. But it has to suit the context and the environment and the processes that we operate on. So that’s my own take. Thank you.

Katherine Getao: So, the time has drawn to a close. I’m sorry, we started three minutes late and now we’re three minutes over time. So I hope you’ll just bear with me as I say goodbye. So my duty, first of all, is to really thank our panelists, Ibrahim, Scott, James, Eliud. I think we’ve really benefited. And I’m so proud that all our panelists, as most of our webinars, the vast majority of our panelists are from Africa. And we’re very, very proud of that because you can see that Africa is very, very diverse. And we’re very, very proud of that because you can see that Thank you for being with us today and sharing your knowledge. I’ll also add Mohamed from Somaliland for also sharing your knowledge with us. Secondly, I’d say we have a lot to learn from each other. I wish we could have more panels like this after every election so that no country in Africa repeats the mistake of any other country. We are able to learn from one another and each country to do better than the last because we really don’t have the resources to waste in making the same mistakes over and over again. The second thing that I wanted to say just in closing is there’s hope. We’ve seen that even though there are all these infrastructure, connectivity and other problems, yes, we’ve had some success, especially at the pre-election stage. So we’re very, very encouraged by what you’ve shared today for different countries, Nigeria, Somaliland, Kenya, South Africa, many countries around have at least been able to use digital technology in some part of the electoral process with quite a degree of success. The last lesson is, of course, there are things that must be done and some of these things are expensive and I’ll just link that with my first comment that please let’s learn from one another. And in that spirit, we do hold these webinars through the Diplo Foundation quarterly. So please continue to make your suggestions about the technology and diplomacy issues that we need to discuss. And please encourage your friends to join. We had the smallest audience we’ve ever had today. And I’m disappointed. because I think this is one of the richest discussions we’ve had. So next time, please join. If you are a panelist, you can always join and we’ll continue to invite you. And please invite your friends to join so that we have rich discussions and we learn from one another. So I’ll just ask Mwende to say the final words and then we can close. But thank you very, very much to all the participants and to all the panelists and to Arvin, the technical team from Diplo Foundation. Thank you so much. I hand over to Mwende.

Mwende Njiraini: Thank you so much, Dr. Getao. It has been a very enriched discussion that we have had. We thank you all our panelists for your contribution. I’ll not add many more, but I think we need to continue with the discussion that we have had so far because there are indeed issues that are arising that we can put our minds to and we can bring value from our experiences to those processes. So thank you so much, everyone. We are willing to invite you again and we’ll invite you for the next webinar, which will be in September. And we’ll be just discussing the Global Digital Compact. So we invite you all to join us in September. And in the meantime, just head to our Diplo website and the African page and give your comments and interactions so that we can learn from each other. So thank you so much and have a very good evening, morning and afternoon. Thank you. Thank you.

Katherine Getao:

Agreement points

Digital technology can enhance election processes but comes with challenges

Speakers

– Ibrahim Lawal Ahmed
– James Olabode
– Katherine Getao
– Mwende Njiraini

Arguments

Digital technology can enhance efficiency, transparency and credibility of elections

Technology has helped reduce electoral fraud like ballot box snatching in Nigeria

Digital technology raises concerns about financial costs, cybersecurity risks, and potential disenfranchisement

Digital technology in elections has both benefits and risks

Summary

The speakers agree that digital technology can improve various aspects of elections, but also acknowledge associated challenges like costs and security risks.

Trust is crucial for successful implementation of election technology

Speakers

– James Olabode
– Ibrahim Lawal Ahmed
– Eliud Kibii

Arguments

Countries need to build trust in electoral processes before introducing new technologies

Technology choices should be adapted to local contexts and infrastructure

Improving overall governance systems is necessary to build confidence in elections

Summary

The speakers emphasize the importance of building trust in electoral processes and adapting technology to local contexts for successful implementation.

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers suggest that a hybrid approach, combining manual and digital methods, may be more suitable for African countries given infrastructure limitations.

Speakers

– James Olabode
– Eliud Kibii

Arguments

Hybrid approaches combining manual and digital methods may be most appropriate

Infrastructure and capacity challenges make full digitization impractical for many African countries

Unexpected consensus

Continued ambition in adopting digital election technologies

Speakers

– James Olabode
– Ibrahim Lawal Ahmed

Arguments

African countries should continue to be ambitious in adopting digital election technologies

We will see more digital technology introduced in many of the elections across Africa

Explanation

Despite acknowledging challenges, both speakers encourage continued ambition in adopting digital election technologies, which is somewhat unexpected given the emphasis on challenges and caution expressed elsewhere.

Overall assessment

Summary

The main areas of agreement include recognizing both benefits and challenges of digital election technology, emphasizing the importance of trust and context-appropriate solutions, and acknowledging the need for infrastructure development.

Consensus level

There is a moderate level of consensus among the speakers on the potential of digital technology to improve elections, but also on the need for caution and context-specific approaches. This suggests a nuanced understanding of the topic, recognizing both opportunities and challenges in implementing digital election technologies in Africa.

Different viewpoints

Readiness for full digitization of elections in Africa

Speakers

– James Olabode
– Eliud Kibii

Arguments

African countries should continue to be ambitious in adopting digital election technologies

Infrastructure and capacity challenges make full digitization impractical for many African countries

Summary

James advocates for continued ambition in adopting digital technologies, while Eliud emphasizes the practical limitations due to infrastructure and capacity challenges.

Unexpected differences

Role of technology in solving electoral problems

Speakers

– James Olabode
– Scott Timcke

Arguments

African countries should continue to be ambitious in adopting digital election technologies

Technology alone cannot solve fundamental political issues – institutional strength is key

Explanation

While most speakers focused on how to implement technology, Scott unexpectedly emphasized that technology itself cannot solve fundamental political issues, highlighting a more skeptical view of technology’s role.

Overall assessment

Summary

The main areas of disagreement revolve around the readiness for digitization, the role of technology in solving electoral problems, and the approach to implementing technological solutions in African elections.

Disagreement level

The level of disagreement is moderate. While there is general agreement on the potential benefits of technology in elections, speakers differ on the pace of implementation, the extent of reliance on technology, and the prioritization of technological solutions versus institutional strengthening. These disagreements reflect the complex challenges facing African countries in modernizing their electoral systems while addressing infrastructure, capacity, and trust issues.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers suggest that a hybrid approach, combining manual and digital methods, may be more suitable for African countries given infrastructure limitations.

Speakers

– James Olabode
– Eliud Kibii

Arguments

Hybrid approaches combining manual and digital methods may be most appropriate

Infrastructure and capacity challenges make full digitization impractical for many African countries

Key takeaways

Digital technology can enhance efficiency and transparency in elections, but also raises concerns about costs, cybersecurity, and potential disenfranchisement

Building trust in electoral processes is crucial before introducing new technologies

A hybrid approach combining manual and digital methods may be most appropriate for many African countries given infrastructure challenges

Technology choices should be adapted to local contexts and implemented gradually

Improving overall governance systems and infrastructure is necessary to build confidence in elections

Resolutions and action items

Continue to be ambitious but realistic in adopting digital election technologies in Africa

Take a step-by-step approach to digitizing different parts of the electoral process

Share experiences between African countries to avoid repeating mistakes

Prioritize building necessary infrastructure like power and internet access

Unresolved issues

How to balance ambition for new technologies with the high stakes of elections

Specific ways to build public trust in digital voting systems

How to address cybersecurity threats to digital election systems

Methods to ensure universal suffrage and avoid disenfranchisement with digital systems

Suggested compromises

Use hybrid systems combining manual and digital methods where appropriate

Implement digital technologies gradually in different parts of the electoral process

Adapt technology choices to local contexts and infrastructure capabilities

Digital technology application is a lot about trust. A country can spend a lot of money, but if the people don’t trust the processes, it becomes a waste. So countries first need to build trust.

Speaker

James Olabode

Reason

This comment cuts to the heart of the issue by emphasizing that trust, not just technology, is crucial for successful digital elections.

Impact

It shifted the discussion to focus more on the human and social aspects of implementing election technology, rather than just the technical challenges.

We need to disaggregate the types of technological systems that we’re talking about. At the moment we tend to use AI as a placeholder for a variety of different types of vending options and different types of statistical analysis that’s taking place in and around elections.

Speaker

Scott Timcke

Reason

This comment brings nuance to the discussion by pointing out the need to be more specific about different types of election technologies.

Impact

It encouraged more precise language and analysis of specific technologies rather than broad generalizations about ‘digital voting’.

The electoral management body, the portal, during the, I think, presidential election, it was attacked 3,834,244 times in just one day, in less than 24 hours.

Speaker

Ibrahim Lawal Ahmed

Reason

This concrete example vividly illustrates the scale of cybersecurity challenges facing digital election systems.

Impact

It grounded the discussion in real-world challenges and highlighted cybersecurity as a major concern that needs to be addressed.

Estonia is being lauded as like the pioneer of digital election in the whole world. But the question people miss is always, so what’s the population of Estonia? You know, there are less than 2 million.

Speaker

James Olabode

Reason

This comment challenges the assumption that successful models from small countries can be easily applied to large, diverse African nations.

Impact

It prompted more critical thinking about the scalability and contextual factors that need to be considered when implementing election technologies.

Overall assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by moving it beyond surface-level enthusiasm for digital voting to a more nuanced examination of the challenges, contextual factors, and human elements involved. They encouraged participants to think more critically about the specific technologies, trust-building processes, and scalability issues that need to be addressed for successful implementation of digital election systems in Africa.

How can countries build trust in digital voting systems?

Speaker

Ibrahim Lawal Ahmed

Explanation

Trust was identified as a key factor for successful implementation of digital voting technology. Understanding how to build this trust is crucial for adoption.

What are the best practices for implementing a hybrid approach to digital voting that accounts for infrastructure limitations?

Speaker

James Olabode

Explanation

Given infrastructure challenges in many African countries, exploring hybrid approaches that combine digital and manual methods could be valuable.

How can countries effectively address cybersecurity threats to digital voting systems?

Speaker

Ibrahim Lawal Ahmed

Explanation

The Nigerian experience of massive cyberattacks during elections highlights the need to research robust cybersecurity measures.

What are the implications of using national ID systems for voter registration instead of separate voter IDs?

Speaker

James Olabode

Explanation

This approach was suggested as a way to increase inclusiveness and reduce disenfranchisement, warranting further exploration.

How can digital technology be leveraged to increase youth participation in elections?

Speaker

Katherine Getao

Explanation

Given the increasing political engagement of youth on social media, research on using technology to boost their electoral participation could be valuable.

What are the most effective ways to use blockchain technology to enhance election integrity?

Speaker

James Olabode

Explanation

Blockchain was mentioned as a potential solution to some election integrity issues, but its specific applications need further research.

How can countries balance the ambition to implement digital voting with the need for reliable, trustworthy systems?

Speaker

Ibrahim Lawal Ahmed

Explanation

Finding this balance was identified as crucial for successful implementation of digital voting technologies in Africa.