[kictanet] Opinion Technology, transparency, and the Kenyan general election of 2013

[Brian Munyao Longwe]

@Walu
I know that you are being comical and argumentative with your remarks
regarding forced marriage. Bottom line, it didn't work for Kenya. Glad that
we are now going to be able to move with a house in which it is clear who
is wearing the trousers!

:)

Brian


On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 1:00 PM, Walubengo J <jwalu at yahoo.com> wrote:

> @Mwale,
>
> All am saying is that the manual system - with all its legal backing  - is
> prone to errors and loopholes as outlined in my earlier submission. A
> parallel system- the Results Transmission System is would greatly
> compliment this manual system (not replace it) and would have gone a long
> way in closing down  loopholes while increasing the acceptability of the
> results by the losers. The risks outlined are purely from an Information
> Systems Audit perspective and am sure Dismas Ongondi, the IT Director @IEBC
> who is also a Certified Info Systems Auditor will agree with most of them.
>
> In other words, If we decide to go to the 2017/18 elections with this
> newfound and increased belief in our manual electral systems, I think we as
> an ICT community, will be setting up this country to unnecessary disputes
> that may well have been avoided - simply by adopting and using information
> systems already provided for in our legislation and procured by our
> hard-earned taxpayers money.
>
> On a lighter note @Brian,
> All marriages have the same level of risk - whether forced or willingly
> enjoined.  Indeed forced marriage in most African and Asian cultures tended
> to last longer than these modern(westernized) marriages that are quickly
> and willingly enacted :-). So forced or not, coalitions of whatever origin
> must have a deliberate program to manage competing expectations for the
> sake of a stable government that all Kenyans deserve.
>
> walu.
> nb: Meanwhile at the risk of being arrested by Dr. Ndemo and his cyberteam
> (for hate-speech) am reliably informed that the following babies born last
> week are looking forward to changing their names. They include Amicus
> Onyango, Verdict-ine Kitili, Lacuna Achieng and Prima-facie Wafula :-)
>
>
>   ------------------------------
> *From:* Jotham Kilimo Mwale <jokilimo at yahoo.com>
> *To:* jwalu at yahoo.com
> *Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
> *Sent:* Sunday, March 31, 2013 7:03 PM
>
> *Subject:* Re: [kictanet] Opinion Technology, transparency, and the
> Kenyan general election of 2013
>
> @Brian - well said in your response to @Walu and also in the article. Ours
> is a manual voting system, and in 2013 some processes (voter registration
> and identification, results transmission and tallying) were enhanced (not
> replaced) by deploying technology. This technology failed (voter
> identification and RTS) on voting day thus removing the enhancement but, in
> my opinion, not affecting the integrity of the manual voting system. Others
> saw it differently, hence the petitions. Detailed Supreme Court judgement
> may shed light on this.
>
> @ Muraya - the high voter turn out in 2013 can be attributed to several
> factors, chief among them that it was a fresh register compiled only 3
> months to the election. Chances are the people who registered intended to
> vote and even if one accounts for natural attrition, chances of well over
> 90% turnout should not raise any eyebrows. This was not the situation in
> 2002, 2007 and 2010 when an old register was updated but the dead over the
> years were never/rarely removed.
>
> Jotham
>
>
>
>   ------------------------------
> *From:* S.M. Muraya <murigi.muraya at gmail.com>
> *To:* jokilimo at yahoo.com
> *Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
> *Sent:* Sunday, March 31, 2013 3:56 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [kictanet] Opinion Technology, transparency, and the
> Kenyan general election of 2013
>
>
> Even as conspiracy theories (continue to) abound, let us note age old
> wisdom stating:
>
> "Every matter/case must be established by two or three witnesses"
>
> Over 3 elections/witnesses exist as to how many votes were probably cast
> on March 4th, 2013.
>
> Looking at Nairobi votes, (i) the presidential, (ii) governor and (iii)
> senator -- total votes cast were over 1.3 million (over 72% voter turnout)
> in all 3 races.
>
> If voter turnout in Nairobi has averaged 50% in past elections (2002,
> 2007, 2010 - referendum), this was an over 40% increase....
>
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 31, 2013 at 2:03 PM, Brian Munyao Longwe <blongwe at gmail.com>wrote:
>
> @Walu
>
> A forced marriage is very different from a marriage between consenting
> partners. I venture to say that the "marriage" between Kibaki and Raila was
> forced.
>
> The "marriages" in this election were consensual. Night and day difference.
>
> As for the RTS system - I beg to differ. Not matter how much we may WANT
> the electronic system to have been there as a parallel verification system
> the truth (and the fact) is that RTS was merely for transmission of
> PROVISIONAL results (as clearly indicated in practically all official
> specifications for the RTS). As per the Supreme Court the real vote was the
> paper ballot count along with the various checks and balances.
>
> Nevertheless your reasoning is spot on in terms of one of the ways in
> which technology *can* be used to enhance the vote. Hopefully if anything
> comes out of this dialogue, some of these points will be included in the
> design of future systems intended to support the election.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Brian
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 31, 2013 at 12:52 PM, Walubengo J <jwalu at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> @Brian,
>  Coalition Govt will be with us forever.   Our current govt, Jubilee is a
> coalition between TNA and URP.  So expect "nusu-mkate" politics to be with
> us for a while and it is not necessarily a bad thing.  Even UK, Germany,
> Israel and many other mature democracies have these types of governments.
> Perhaps we just need to learn how to manage them.
>
> @Rigia,
> Nice piece on the technology and election processes.  But it misses one
> fundamental that most analysts, legal counsel and I dare say the Supreme
> court may have missed.  The fact that the Results Transmission System (RTS)
> is not just useful in "speeding-up" the announcement of results but its
> fundamental and more useful role is by acting as a PARALLEL verification
> mechanism.
>
> What this means is that once the tallying has been done and announced at
> the LOCAL Polling station, those very (Presidential) results are supposed
> to be instantly transmitted to the NATIONAL Level and thereof made public
> to the wider national community. In essence the "local" data is no longer
> just local but becomes "global", and any attempt to modify the same at a
> later stage,  by way of agreement, error or outright corruption will
> require a good amount of explanation. This is because what was Transmitted
> and displayed electronically is expected to match the physical election
> Forms 34 as they arrive at the National level, 2-3days later.
>
> Remember, just because all agents did sign the election documents (Form34)
> maybe good but it is not sufficient evidence that what was countersigned is
> indeed what was announced (each signatures has a price?).  It is much
> stronger and a better  check if what has been countersigned manually is
> cross-checked against another parallel system - the Results Transmission
> System. One may then ask, what if the RTS is also compromised? i.e. Agents
> collude with the Returning Officer to sends fictitious results
> instanteneously over the RTS?  This is unlikely to happen because as our
> outgoing President, Mwai Kibaki once rightly put it, you need Intelligence
> to rig elections :-).  Most of this "intelligence" only occurs after a
> period of time (1-2-3days) later when 60-70-80% of the results at various
> polling stations is locally  known  but remains globally or nationallyunkown (awaiting physical arrival of Form36) . It will not be very
> intelligeny to start rigging an election, when you are yet to gather the
> general trend(intelligence) of the results since one can easily over-rig
> and get caught :-). So you can bet your salary that instantly transmitted
> results are likely to be more reliable/correct results as compared to the
> physical ones that will arrive 3days later.
>
> Put differently "instantaneous" transmission of  results at the polling
> stations distributes widely what is otherwise "local" knowledge and DENIES
> potential election riggers the opportunity and the time to leverage on this
> type of intelligence. The Results Transmission System ensures that no
> single candidate enjoys the monopoly of local knowledge (Results at
> Polling Station that are not yet in the national public domain) and thus
> eliminates the temptation to abuse the same to their advantage. Knowledge
> is indeed power and local knowledge is even more powerful - I should add.
> If politician's Agents knew that Polling results were no longer "local" but
> widely known across the country - courtesy of the instantaneous Results
> Transmission System - then the temptation to sign against fictitious/edited
> result figures will be greatly reduced.  Indeed this fact alone, will
> diminish any Politician's desire to even begin to compromise Agents at the
> Polling station since it is futile to do so upon knowing that the Results
> are already "out and about" in the public domain.
>
> So my prayer for 2017/18 is that as an ICT community, we must ask and
> indeed demand that IEBC ensures that as a minimum tech-input to the
> elections, the Results Transmission System must work.
>
> Lets Enjoy our Easter and the Jubilee years ahead.
>
> walu.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>   ------------------------------
> *From:* Brian Munyao Longwe <blongwe at gmail.com>
> *To:* jwalu at yahoo.com p
> *Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
> *Sent:* Saturday, March 30, 2013 11:11 PM
>
> *Subject:* Re: [kictanet] Opinion Technology, transparency, and the
> Kenyan general election of 2013
>
> Since I have developed a reputation for saying the unpopular things that
> people think but are either too shy or too conflicted to talk about I will
> make a simple point that I have observed over the past few years.
>
> While the coalition government was lauded as a reasonable way of dealing
> with the electoral debacle that we faced in 2007, the truth is that for the
> past 5 years there have been some very strange and unusual dynamics at work
> in the operations and makeup of Government departments and agencies. A
> massive plus has been the much higher levels of scrutiny and
> accountability. But I would like to suggest that the benefits have been
> outweighed by the disadvantages.
>
> A good example, and one that I would like to use here is the IEBC - it is
> no secret that the two principals had to "share out" the various positions
> that needed to be filled both a commissioner as well as senior management.
> This has been the pattern for almost all appointments and recruiting
> exercises across Government.
>
> I venture to say that this approach has been counterproductive and aside
> from yielding teams that can work together in planning, policy, strategy
> and implementation within their departments/agencies has yielded a replica
> of the competitive, antagonistic, selfish and almost vindictive tension
> that has been evident between the two principals since day one.
>
> It is my sincere hope that the next government will be marked by a
> complete change in attitude, with more of a genuine team-based dynamic in
> terms of setting and achieving organizational goals.
>
> My two cents,
>
> Brian
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 30, 2013 at 10:21 PM, Dick Omondi <Dick.Omondi at ke.airtel.com>wrote:
>
> Now that we have a court decision that clears the matter of the
> presidency, perhaps it is now time to remove the emotions of the decision,
> turn away from politics and get down to the core issues in real
> institutional management and those surrounding the processes and the people
> around the IEBC lest we sit back and get through another four years and put
> together another unit in the last year of the 5 and go back to the same
> merry go round.
> ------------------------------
>  *From*: kictanet **
> *To*: Dick Omondi
> *Cc*: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions **
> *Sent*: Sat Mar 30 21:40:14 2013
>
> *Subject*: Re: [kictanet] Opinion Technology, transparency, and the
> Kenyan general election of 2013
> Thank you Ali. I appreciate your comments. Shukran.
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 30, 2013 at 1:38 PM, Ali Hussein <ali at hussein.me.ke> wrote:
>
> Wariga
>
> Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed the read. I want to however object to the
> words:-
>
> '...the election results show that technology has failed them.'
>
> I humbly submit that what failed us in this case is a mix of partisan
> politicking, a knack for jostling to see how each proponent could
> manipulate the process for their own benefit and lastly the failure of the
> IEBC leadership to accept and tell Kenyans to our faces that the most
> expensive technology ever bought for elections in Kenya (and Probably
> Africa) was designed to fail before it landed in the country.
>
> I would replace the sentence '...the election results show that technology
> has failed them.' with the sentence
>
> '...the election results show that *leadership* has failed them.'
>
> The saving grace is that we have a sober Supreme Court and we thank God
> for them.
>
> Ali Hussein
> CEO | 3mice interactive media Ltd
> Principal | Telemedia Africa Ltd
>
> +254 773/713 601113
>
> "The future belongs to him who knows how to wait." - Russian Proverb
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Mar 29, 2013, at 11:05 PM, Warigia Bowman <warigia at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> I thought you guys might enjoy this piece.
>
> http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/03/2013329135519365308.html
>
> Take a look, and tell me what you think. :-)
>
> Warigia
>
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>
> --
> Dr. Warigia Bowman
> Assistant Professor
> Clinton School of Public Service
> University of Arkansas
> wbowman at clintonschool.uasys.edu
> -------------------------------------------------
> View my research on my SSRN Author page:
> http://ssrn.com/author=1479660
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