Belize High School’s IT Unit Made Voting/Counting Easier & Faster
As we reported earlier, the P.U.P. rented the ground spaces at the Belize Elementary School compound on Princess Margaret Drive to hold its councilor candidate convention on Sunday. But part of that agreement also included utilizing the schools’ IT capabilities in the way it conducted the voting. Unlike voting during the actual municipal or general elections, voting was done digitally instead of with the traditional paper, pencil and indelible ink on the index finger. The program allows voters to see the pictures and accompanying names of the candidates on a computer screen and to select which ones they want to vote for. The process eliminates spoilt ballots and is one that Principal of Belize High School, Jamie Usher says was used for their student council elections and a couple other P.U.P. conventions. Hopefully, someday it can be developed to a point where it can be used to conduct the municipal and even the general elections.
Jamie Usher
Jamie Usher, Principal, Belize High School
“This program allows voters to participate in paperless voting, so we did not have ballots, we did not have pencils, we did not have ink. What we had were I.D numbers verified in a system, with your voter’s I.D. You came in, you went to an electronic station, a computer with mouse, or a touch-screen all-in-one computer, you selected your candidates and you confirmed your votes all electronically. What it allows the administrators to do: Mr. Collet Montejo, Secretary-General, Linsford Castillo, and Chairman, Henry Usher is instantaneous results, so the polls closed at 4:00 and at 4:01, 4:02, they had the results of all 23 candidates, the number of votes and then they got to pick the top nine. We know that this is a huge cultural shift, so we want it to be something that doesn’t go too fast because we want to establish confidence in the program. We’re not swearing that it’s perfect. As I explained, it’s something that we continuously learn how to keep secure. Now contingency-wise, what my team has been able to develop is if there’s no power, we have a generator. If there’s no Wi-Fi, the system operates on a closed network, an LAN (Local Area Network) which does not rely on Wi-Fi, meaning the whole thing can still happen – no power, no Wi-Fi.”
Marion Ali
“Ok, but since it’s not flawless, could there have been an error in the outcome?”
Jamie Usher
“No. The error would not be anything with the outcome. Where we have established errors would be the human error in terms of entering the number. Remember each delegate got a unique number. If, for whatever reason, there was a typo or a switching of the numbers, it would be flagged immediately because when the voter went to the station it would say “user not found.” So we did catch all of those little errors and it did not impact the voters’ ability to vote.”
Marion Ali
“And then in the voting yoh can’t spoil a ballot, right?”
Jamie Usher
“Okay, so yes, the spoilt ballots is a big thing in terms of resources and it might hamper results, so what we did is put in some fail-safes in terms of – in the program, you cannot vote 0 and you cannot vote more than nine. So any number between one and nine cast was good today and the system shut you out if you tried to vote less or more than.”
Marion Ali
“Or put your name on the ballot?”
Jamie Usher
“You could not – you can’t type in. I hope your footage captures that there’s very little interaction, so you can’t write any messages on the ballots. I would just like to congratulate my team, Mr. Godfrey Sosa, the IT director, the IT teachers and our students for embracing an opportunity to take the lead on something.”
