[kictanet] Election fiasco reveals Technological dinosaurs

Tue Jan 8 19:44:52 EAT 2008

Hi,

It is interesting to know that a number of technology  options were provide to ECK.

When you are dealing with a group of lawyers who do not understand SMS what is the chance they would appreciate GIS.  

Out of curiosity does the ECK have a commissioner responsible for ICT?

Evelyn, if possible can you share the proposal that was given to ECK, maybe we need to look at this as the IT fraternities contribution to future free and fare elections.

Regards

Robert Yawe
KAY System Technologies Ltd
Phoenix House, 6th Floor
P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200
KEnya 
Tel: +254722511225

----- Original Message ----
From: Evelyn Rono <evelyn.rono at kdn.co.ke>
To: robert yawe <robertyawe at yahoo.co.uk>
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Sent: Tuesday, 8 January, 2008 12:28:43 PM
Subject: RE: [kictanet] Election fiasco reveals Technological dinosaurs

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Hi Bobby,

Several ICT
companies and individuals approached the ECK with the intention of  supporting
and a managing the process with ICT.    I quote “ ECK in 2004
was provided with IT hardware & software and GIS electoral database created
with each individual polling station positions' mapped using GIS technology
that integrated with the electoral database through a unique ID for polling
station.  The constituency boundaries provided the domain universe within
which each polling station could be located for administrative purposes. 
Training was also conducted for ECK”.  The same company tried to do
the same 2007

This did not happen – Only ECK knows.

Evelyn Rono

From:
kictanet-bounces+evelyn.rono=kdn.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke [mailto:kictanet-bounces+evelyn.rono=kdn.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke]
On Behalf Of robert yawe

Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008
11:51 AM

To: evelyn.rono at kdn.co.ke

Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy
Discussions

Subject: [kictanet] Election
fiasco reveals Technological dinosaurs

Happy new year to you all and I pray that you are all well.

It is shocking that in this day and age we can actually have the kind of
electoral fiasco that has been visited on us by the ECK and Co as well as the
political parties.

This draconian problem reared its head when the Orange 
house was broken into and the computers stolen.  Hon.Nyongo's statement
indicated that the objective was to steal the member register.  If I
needed to steal the register which from his comments was in electronic form
what was the need of taking off with the computer.  Has he ever heard of
flash disks,  external hard dis drives and CD/DVD writers. 
Technology allows me to steal his data without him every knowing.

After this issue Kivuiti dismissed the SMS service that had been made available
by Telkom to enable voters confirm their details.  He even went to the
extent of saying he does not know how to send an SMS.  As the IT
fraternity in the country can we really escape blame for this fiasco?

The next time was when  I saw Hon. Ruto standing at KICC and screaming
himself hoarse over the forms 16 & 16A that had not been received.  It
seems he might be using a Nokia 1018 mobile phone (he actually uses a Nokia N
series).  

Was it so difficult for the opposition to provide each of their agents with a
camera equipped mobile phone that they would have used to to take pictures of
the form and also record the returning officer announcing the results. 
This would then have been easily sent to party head quarters.

There are 210 or so constituencies in the country and the mobile phones I am
talking about cost about 10,000/- each do the math. 

I ask am I the only Kenyan who is aware of such technology or is this entire
fiasco a stage managed process.  Even the EU observer teams came equipped
as if it was the 12th Century after which they proceeded to make unsupported
statements about the result that further inflamed bloodshed.

Maybe its a techie thing to keep in our glass houses and refuse to add value to
a process and only send around message (this one included) after the
fact.  

It is re-assuring when we remember the Florida 
fiasco but this not withstanding do we really have a moral standing to point
fingers about the election results?

What will be our contribution to stopping this from being repeated in future?

Regards

Remember Matiba and his video cameras during the good old days of mulolongo
voting?

Robert Yawe

KAY System Technologies Ltd

 Phoenix House,
6th Floor

 P O Box 55806
 Nairobi , 00200

 KEnya

Tel: +254722511225

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