Hi All, In Africa, only a few countries can claim to have conducted free and fair elections. Majority of elected representatives in Africa want to cling to power forever against the will of their citizens or some of their citizens. To add salt to the injury, all dictators in Africa have a poor record of development and human rights. A lot of African leaders point to China as a case in point where democracy is not necessarily a catalyst for development. But is that true?
Back to elections, electronic voting in Africa would dramatically increase transparency in the electoral process. Unfortunately, Africa has weak systems from Judiciary to Police that cannot guarantee free and fair elections. The Police, the Judiciary, Independent Electoral Commissions have been and can be easily influenced by current regimes mostly through intimidation and in young and vocal democracies such as Kenya or South Africa through bribes. Security is of the utmost concern but democracy is more important. In one way or another people will always find ways to fight for their freedoms especially in the age of Internet where people can see the benefits of a democratic society. But instead of having people go to war or risk their lives, why can't we just use Technology to lay bare the truth? I think the subject of the discussion should be: How can we make e-voting more secure and credible? On implementing an e-voting system, we can look for inspiration from M-Pesa. M-Pesa handled $52.6 billion worth of transactions in the past financial year equivalent to 85% of Kenya's GDP. M-Pesa doesn't use HTTPS, it's a service embedded in your mobile sim card. It is built on a decentralized system where thousands of agents operate across Kenya. Users deposit and withdraw from the agents. From their mobile phones they can view their balance, send to other M-Pesa users etc etc.. Best, -- Zacharia Mwangi, Computer Science,Bsc., Strathmore '17 -- *Note: *All emails sent from Strathmore University are subject to Strathmore’s Email Terms & Conditions. Please click here <http://www.strathmore.edu/en/email-policy> to read the policy. "Visit our Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/StrathmoreUniversity>Page and Twitter <https://twitter.com/StrathU>Account".
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