Prospect of employing e-voting scheme in Ethiopia: understanding perception of the government and opposition political parties

Abstract Over the years, the opposition parties argued that the existing election system in Ethiopia has many problems during the election process and the outcome of actual results and it is not a kind of election system they can trust. Whereas the government officials claimed it was fair and free election system. The integrity of the election process is fundamental to the integrity of democracy itself. Hence, electronic voting (e-Voting) is a newly popular method to cast ballots of an election using electronic devices. This scheme is deployed highly as a main election system in some countries and still others are using a hybrid system. However, there are countries like Ethiopia which adopt the manual election scheme for several years till now. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to understand the perception of the government and opposition political parties towards the prospect of implementing e-voting scheme in the present context of Ethiopia. Even though there are setbacks in implementing e-voting in the present political situation of Ethiopia. However, the benefits are deemed to be much useful. Therefore, it is in the hands of the public and the government to work in developing and adopting e-voting scheme in a way that is helpful for both stakeholders. This paper suggests the government and the oppositions should have a reasonable consensus and planned date for starting the campaign which gives the right for the people for free and fair election and the rise of new political arena. Key words- e-voting, hybrid system, manual election scheme