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Lessons from Florida

Some years ago I became the proud possessor of the CD-ROM version of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Upon opening the instruction booklet to find out how to install the programme, this gobbledygook meet my eyes: 'Click the Start button, and then click Run. In the Run dialogue box, type the drive letter for the CD-ROM drive, a colon (:), and \setup. For example, d:\setup.'

Then I saw the instructions for the Macintosh version. 'Double-click the CD-ROM icon that appears on the screen.' That was it, just one sentence.

To paraphrase George Orwell, some computers are clearly more equal than others. I am sure Microsoft's coders are just as talented as those at Apple, but writing software and designing an elegant interface are two different things.

I was reminded of this when I heard that a firm in Bangalore had designed a programme that would facilitate voting by using a fingerprint identification system. Someone told me that is streets ahead of the antiquated method used in the United States; had it been in place, it was claimed, the procedure would have resolved the mess in Florida.

To which my reaction is a bemused "How will it do that?"

Let us not confuse the issue. Nobody in Florida is alleging that there was any voter fraud, meaning that their votes were cast by somebody else. (That, I believe, happened in President Clinton's native Arkansas, but nobody has said anything of the kind in Florida. Well, not yet anyway!) I am sure that using a fingerprint system is better than, say, voter identification cards, but how is that relevant to Florida?

The problem in that state -- in a few counties anyway -- was a confusing design. Correcting that is the job of a good graphic designer, not a software engineer. And ensuring that every county in every state follows the same pattern should be the duty of a federal body on the lines of India's Election Commission -- which does not exist in the United States.

I hope that biometric identification systems -- fingerprints, retinal scans, whatever -- take off, but it is crazy to pretend that they are a solution to the shambles in Florida. If you ask me, it is a perfect solution to a question that has not been asked!

I am not being a Luddite; the creaking electoral machinery in the United States definitely needs to be toned up. I read somewhere that America's electoral technologies trace their roots back to 1805, when the punch cards of Joseph-Marie Jacquard automated cloth-weaving patterns for the loom. If a degree of computerisation helps, then it should definitely be used.

But I am very, very skeptical when a software engineer claims that he has designing skills. Take a look at those installation directions I quoted above, and you will see what I mean. If Florida voters could be confused -- as they have testified in courts of law -- by printed ballots, do you think they would fare better with all that computer jargon? Of course, the software writers may be as good as those at Apple, but that (quite literally) remains to be seen.

In any case, I think that the muddle in the United States in general, and Florida in particular, goes beyond the antiquated technology and the poor choice of blueprint for the ballot-paper. We are doing ourselves a disfavour by ignoring them, because we will have to confront them in India too sooner or later.

To cite but one point, there were the narrow margins of victory seen in almost every state in the United States. One reason, which has been surprisingly ignored, is voter apathy. For obvious reasons the final figures are not yet in, but I gather that just over 50 per cent of the electorate turned up to vote.

In the last General Election, India did much better -- 59.99 per cent. Yet that still means 40 per cent -- two of every five voters -- preferred to sit at home. (In Delhi, only an abysmal 43.54 per cent of registered voters turned up at the booths!)

How will investing in biometrics improve that situation? One solution, currently being tested in the American State of Oregon I think, is to permit voters to exercise their ballot over the Internet. But this means that fingerprint identification is a moot point; I shudder to think what it would cost to have one of those ultra-expensive machines in every household!

I am not sure that voters would bother to act even so. The general feeling in the United States seemed to be one of: "How does it matter who wins? There is no difference between the Republicans and Democrats anyway!" Substitute the two parties with Congress party and Bharatiya Janata Party and you might be quoting one of Delhi's disenchanted voters.

To put it bluntly, politics is in serious danger of being the concern of professional politicians and the media alone, not of ordinary people. And that is a dangerous situation, one that no amount of computerisation can resolve.

Biometric identification is a wonderful scheme in some situations. Can you show me a way to lock my car so that only a defined set of people can open it? I will buy such a lock today! Is there a bank that will provide its customers with safes that shall swing open only at their fingerprint? It would be a hit with clients in villages and cities across India!

But if you offer me such a system, and claim it would have solved the mess in Florida, all I can say is: "Who are you kidding?" Of course, if it is economical enough, I think it should be used in places such as Bihar, but that is a story for another day!

T V R Shenoy