Itan COO Supports Electronic Voting Machines

Mr. Oluwole Owolabi, Chief Operating Officer, Itan, has expressed support for the use of ‘electronic voting machines’ (EVMs) in Nigeria. The term 'electronic voting machines' refers to direct recording electronic (DRE) voting machines and not optical-scan machines. Although optical-scan machines use an electronic reader to tabulate the vote totals, voters mark their selections on a paper ballot and are not directly recording their votes into the machine.
Owolabi suggests that electronic voting machines make the voting process more efficient. “DREs are secure, able to unambiguously capture the intent of a voter, capable of preventing residual votes, reliable, easy to use, and accessible to disabled, illiterate, and non-English speaking voters.”
Every form of paper ballot that has ever been devised can and has been manipulated, in general with considerable ease. The reason is that humans are familiar with paper and its characteristics, how to mark it to look genuine and how to erase it. By contrast, altering redundant encrypted write-once computer records is impossible even for experts. So assuming that the electronic voting records are written correctly in the first place, the possibility of modifying them later is remote.
Concerns about security of the collection and counting process have always been important. Oluwole Owolabi, who heads the World Information Technology (WITSA), Africa Secretariat, Abuja, believes that “computers offer the first technology that can easily make copies of information in different forms for archival preservation. Electronic voting machines of today keep records of the votes on disk, removable physical media in memories and, as a final count, on a paper scroll. These multiple records can improve voting machines' immunity to problems."
According to him, advantages of direct recording electronic (DRE) systems include eliminating the possibility of making more selections than permissible, advising the voter of when a voter makes fewer than the maximum number of permissible selections in a contest thereby eliminating marking devices which can result in questions of voter intent as well as providing a review screen before a voter casts a ballot.
In order to answer the question, “Do electronic voting machines improve the voting process?” Mr. Owolabi reiterates that the voting process must be defined, confined and examined by ICT experts and professional in the following areas.