BARRING problems or possible sabotage of internet connections, e-voting is the way forward for party elections involving more than 15,000 candidates, said Alvin Teoh, PKR’s IT expert who set up the party’s online voting system.

It also remains the safest and most efficient system for parties in which every member gets one vote, said Teoh, who was arrested and under investigation for allegedly tampering with devices used in the recent party elections.

“In an election with more than 15,000 candidates and 841,000 members, this is more efficient,” he told The Malaysian Insight after the PKR congress last weekend, where the winners of the party’s chaotic elections were confirmed.

Teoh is a full-time PKR staff and central election committee (JPP) member by virtue of being its IT specialist behind the e-voting system.

Teoh, who plans to pursue legal action to clear his name over the alleged tampering during voting in Sarawak’s Julau division, said it would have taken weeks to tabulate the results had the party conducted voting by conventional means with ballot papers.

“Although there were just two candidates for the deputy president’s post and 12 for vice-president, there were 88 candidates vying for the 20 positions in the central leadership committee.

“Along with the Women and Youth wings, and division and branch elections, it was massive,” said Teoh.

The 44-year-old IT specialist also brushed off allegations that the results could have been “hacked”.

“We had good cybersecurity people who helped design the system.”

Explaining the voting process, Teoh said members who arrived at the polling station would give their MyKad to the election officers, who would then verify their membership by using a card reader.

The voter would then be given a printed QR code. The voter must scan the QR code on the tablet to be taken to the voting page. 

“After voting, he then presses ‘send’ and the results are immediately registered and sent to our servers, which then tabulates the results.

“At no point could the results be hacked,” he said.

But while the system is “hack-proof”, Teoh said, the JPP did not anticipate the use of jammers to disrupt internet connections, as in Kuala Selangor, or use of the “Prey” app found in tablets in Julau.

“The jammers did disrupt the process, although it could not alter the results. It only cast doubt on the integrity of the system. 

“The Prey app was similarly used for the same reason,” he added.

Another problem, Teoh said, was the suspicious surge in membership in some divisions.

“But membership rolls are not under our purview and we use what is given to us by the party.”

Teoh also disputed the “missing votes” claim by certain quarters, attributing it to each voter’s personal preference.

“We found that in some divisions, members were only interested in voting for their own division leaders or did not know the candidates for national positions and did not vote for them.

“Hence, there was a disparity between the number of voters and the number of votes cast,” said Teoh.

One way to rectify this, said Teoh, would be to make it compulsory for members to vote for all positions.

On improvements to the e-voting system, Teoh said this would involve better security for the tablets and having third-party observers or election watchdogs.

“With election watchdogs, we could see fewer disputes and reduce candidates casting doubt over the process and results.”

Despite the chaotic election process, Teoh said he still felt proud of what PKR had achieved in this year’s polls.

“We are the first party in the country to have had elections that saw the participation of more than 140,000 members all over the country. And also, the first to do e-voting.

“There were some shortcomings but it’s nothing that we cannot overcome before the next elections.” – November 22, 2018.