TIRANA, Sept. 22 – Elections experts have suggested Albania should take a cautious approach when it comes to electronic voting, a topic that has split political parties in the past 13 years.
An expert with the Coalition for Free and Honest Elections, Ilir Rusmali, argued Wednesday that political parties are using the topic for political opportunism and that technology may threaten the whole process.
He said technology is not the right tool to solve problems related to elections as it causes uncertainties among voters.
“Technology is perceived as a mechanism that frees the process from any act of manipulation,” Rusmaili said in a television interview.
He added technology must be introduced gradually but not in full terms “as the people are the ones behind the electoral process.”
He also accused political parties of using the topic for political opportunism. Rusmaili said that the possibility of introducing electronic voting poses a lot of questions that need to be answered thoroughly before the technology is put to use, such as — “Will the voter be thrilled to cast a vote through a touch screen, or will he be scared. Will they be sure that their vote will not be manipulated? Is technology reliable? Will voters be sure that their political preference will not be scrutinized by political parties?”
Electronic voting and counting have been two of the highly debated projects among politicians in the country.
Ever since 2003, opposition parties have insisted that Albania becomes part of the countries that use technology in elections, considering delays in counting votes and announcing results.
Several OSCE-ODIHR reports on elections in Albania have criticized delays in the electoral process.
Many experts have argued that under the current conditions e-counting can not be applied in the country considering that these machines can only include about 25 entries of political subjects. However, Albania has over 60 political parties running in elections, which means that the margin of error in e-counting and e-voting can be higher and jeopardize the entire process.
Last year, OSCE/ODIHR recommended a review of the legal framework which pushed officials to establish a parliamentary commission for electoral reform.
The bi-partisan committee is tasked to draft amendments to the legal framework based on OSCE-ODIHR recommendations for the parliamentary elections of 2013 and local elections of 2015.
