IEC ICT spend quadruples

The total ICT budget for the upcoming general election is about R200 million, compared with an average of R50 million for previous elections.

According to advocate Pansy Tlakula, chief electoral officer at the IEC, a lot of this spend is due to voter registration scanners that have to be replaced.

"The current stock of scanners was acquired in 1998," explains Tlakula. The IEC now has to buy 30 000 new scanner units.

Tlakula says technology spend is not limited to hardware, as ICT plays a critical role in the preparations for, and the running of, the elections.

As technology partners, the IEC uses a panel of ICT companies, consisting of Afrigis, Data World, Computec, Open Spatial Solutions, Intergraph Systems, Accenture, Time Quantum and arivia.kom.

Tlakula says most political parties are becoming more open to the use of technology with every election and some are even lobbying for the use of electronic voting. However, SA, according to Tlakula, is not yet ready to offer such facilities.

"Firstly, the cost of electronic voting is high," she explains. "There are other challenges associated with electronic voting which even so-called developed democracies, like the US, are still grappling with."

She quotes the absence of a paper trail in the voting and verification system as some of these challenges, as well as suspicions associated with the use of technology in counting votes.

"We will not be using online voting in 2009, not even for the 2011 local government elections. We will, however, get there one day."

Tlakula says the IEC is "quite advanced" in its preparations for the 2009 election.