Report on Voting in Kazakhstan

(I promise no Borat jokes.)

Think we have it bad in terms of electronic voting here in the US? Well, in Kazakhstan, you can sell your vote and the standards for e-voting machines are a state secret.

Doug Jones recently posted the Final report ("Republic of Kazakhstan Presidential Election (4 December 2005) -- OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission Final Report") in his electoral observation mission with the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). In addition to the e-voting-specific snippets below -- highlighting lack of ballot secrecy and secrecy of standards -- I was suprised to see just how difficult it is to have a fair election in Kazakhstan.

As in 2004, the use of an optional four-digit control code generated by voters was a major concern. The purpose of this code is to make it possible for a voter to check if his or her vote was recorded correctly, by consulting a control protocol which lists all control codes next to the name of the candidate for whom the corresponding vote was recorded. While this feature is intended to build public confidence in the e-voting system, the control code, if provided to a third party, would show how a voter voted. This opens the potential for violation of the secrecy of the vote as well as intimidation. The use of a voter-verified paper trail as described above would eliminate the need for the control code.

The certification and testing process of the ‘Sailau’ system still lacks transparency. A private company assessed the system prior to both this election and the 2004 elections. The company indicated that the voting system and its major components were tested to standards which are a state secret. It is, therefore, not possible to assess the appropriateness of these standards. While many aspects of the system do permit auditing, it is not clear whether there is a routine audit process which would allow the identification of problems in a timely manner in order to improve the conduct of future elections. Neither the event logs nor redundant records from the precincts are apparently subject to routine audit. The CEC and its Information Technology Centre staff could not answer all technical questions about voting cards and voting terminals, which suggests that contractors providing these components have been operating with excessive autonomy and insufficient guidance from the CEC.