Walu,

As one of the people entrusted with imparting knowledge to young minds I would be more comfortable if you would give us a detailed and factually accurate analysis of the issues that went wrong and also how we can mitigated against a 2 repeat.  believe if you gave this assignment to those pure minds at the University they will be more objective than any of us who have current or future vested interests and therefore tend to be conservative with the truth. 

Just to digress, it was actually a University student who noted the flows in Enron's account methods yet they had been verified by the top audit firms, investment analysts, the SEC and thousands of other experts. To a student 1 + 1 = 2 but to be and you the answer is whatever the person writing the cheque wants it be be thus our clouded minds as relates to this issue.

Sometimes too much technology can be the problem, the parties need to have trustworthy agents who have more than a fleeting relationship with the party so that they are able to vet the information being transmitted.  Parties which for 4 years 11 months and 30 days have a staff count of 10 suddenly balloon to over 50,000 with the additional personal being temporary staff cannot sort out the verification issue even if the results where to be etched in stone.

What the parties needed was to have the agents take a picture of the signed form 32, 34, 36 and 99 and transmit the same to the party head quarters, in the case of the concluded elections there would have been 8 copies of the presidential election forms stored in 8 different locations.  This was not done by any of the parties which is why when preparing their plaint they had to go and get copies from the IEBC whose accuracy they could not verify as they where comparing the same document against itself and trying to base the case in hearsay from the uncommitted and unpaid agents.

Walu, we all know that automating a broken manual process does not fix it just makes it more difficult to resolve problems when they arise.

Regards
 
Robert Yawe
KAY System Technologies Ltd
Phoenix House, 6th Floor
P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200
Kenya

Tel: +254722511225, +254202010696
From: Walubengo J <jwalu@yahoo.com>
To: robert yawe <robertyawe@yahoo.co.uk>
Cc: "dongondi@iebc.or.ke" <dongondi@iebc.or.ke>; KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Sent: Tuesday, 2 April 2013, 18:34
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Opinion Technology, transparency, and the Kenyan general election of 2013

Yawe,

The thing "alleged" to have been multiplying results by 8 is not the Results Transmission System but as you rightly put it, it may have been the electronic tallying and/or display system.  One would never know these things in the absence of an independent IS-Audit.

The Results Transmission System is made up of a special mobile phone that would sit at the polling station and used by the presiding officer to simply and immediately "sms" the Results preferably into some IEBC database servers. The tallying and display system would then pick these values and do whatever it needs to do with them BUT at least the  previously "smsed" election results would be intact and easily available to be cross-checked/verified against the manual forms 34, whenever they arrive. At the moment, these forms34 could only be cross-checked against themselves in terms of have all or most of the agents  signed them?  If yes, results accepted and everyone is happy.

So my hype is that in 2017/18, we shall be happier if we raise the standards and say, are forms34 signed? YES, and secondly, does the  content on form34 match the content in the results database as earlier transmitted? If YES, then everyone should be happier and those defeated concede and spare the country the drama and anxiety that goes with petitions.

walu
meanwhile: just noting some interesting dimension from Aquinas of Lantech. Looks like the human-aspect was much more tragic than the tech-aspect?.
From: robert yawe <robertyawe@yahoo.co.uk>
To: Walubengo J <jwalu@yahoo.com>
Cc: "dongondi@iebc.or.ke" <dongondi@iebc.or.ke>; KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Sent: Tuesday, April 2, 2013 3:31 PM
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Opinion Technology, transparency, and the Kenyan general election of 2013

Walu,

Why are you being conservative with the truth, the electronic tallying system you are hyping was multiplying the spoilt votes by a factor, I believe, of 8.

If we have no way to audit and vet an electronic system it becomes a million times worse than a manual system, at least we had the manual documents to fall back to.

Please note that even though the CJ was carrying a xPAD he still kept reading from printed paper.

Regards

PS.  The next 100 million that KICT Board decides to spend on competitions should be for electronic voter registration, voter verification and electronic tallying systems, we do not need a replacement for mPesa as it works just fine for our basic requirements.

 
Robert Yawe
KAY System Technologies Ltd
Phoenix House, 6th Floor
P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200
Kenya

Tel: +254722511225, +254202010696
From: Walubengo J <jwalu@yahoo.com>
To: robertyawe@yahoo.co.uk
Cc: "dongondi@iebc.or.ke" <dongondi@iebc.or.ke>; KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Sent: Tuesday, 2 April 2013, 13:00
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Opinion Technology, transparency, and the Kenyan general election of 2013

@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@yahoo.com>
To: jwalu@yahoo.com
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@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@gmail.com>
To: jokilimo@yahoo.com
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@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@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@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 nationally unkown (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@gmail.com>
To: jwalu@yahoo.com p
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@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@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@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@gmail.com> wrote:


Take a look, and tell me what you think. :-)

Warigia
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