Elections Commission explains reasons for delay in releasing results

By Skandha Gunasekara

Accepting complete responsibility for the delay in issuing election results, Elections Commission Chairman Mahinda Deshapriya revealed that a malfunction in the computer software used to tally the election results had been the main cause for the delay. 

 “The software was designed well, but on February 9, we found that even if a single data has not been entered properly, we would not be able to get the other results from the system. We got Manthai East first and when we got Ambalangoda Municipal Council, we saw that what we had was not tallying with the results in the software. 

This was because the postal voting numbers had not been entered,” explained Deshapriya, addressing a media briefing at the Elections Secretariat, adding that this had resulted in the Commission manually inserting and tallying all the data on their own computers, causing a delay of four hours. 

 Although the Commission had promised to release official results by 8 pm on Saturday (10 February), the first results were released only around 12.00 am on Sunday (11 February).

The software was designed by the IT Faculty of the Kelaniya University under the guidance of Professor Gamini Wijeratne. 

 Elaborating further, Deshapriya revealed that the practice of obtaining university assistance in calculating election results began in 1988. 

“Since 1988, the Commission has worked with the Colombo University IT faculty to prepare election results. In 2011, the University worked on one section and the remaining was done by the officers of the Secretariat and the company Lanka Internet. During the 2010 Presidential and Parliamentary elections, we went back to Colombo University but that year there were many allegations cast on the manner in which the results were computed – we however didn’t have a problem with it,” said Deshapriya.

This year, the commission chose the Kelaniya University, and Chairman Deshapriya stressed that the university was not to blame for the delay, though there were questions raised over why the software program was not properly tested for all possible scenarios.

“Most people knew the results in their wards by 6.30pm anyway, and by 12pm all knew most results. The delay only affected media institutions broadcasting the results,” he added.

In addition, Deshapriya lamented that the Commission faced a serious challenge due to the lack of Tamil-proficient officials at the Department of Elections. 

“We decided to send the list of candidates along with the polling cards to all the houses, so that they can make an informed decision. This turned out to be more work than expected as the Government Printers does not have adequate numbers of Tamil proofreaders. This meant that our officers had to be sent there to proofread documents,” said Deshapriya. 

He then stressed the need to hire more officers fluent in Tamil, so that the Secretariat could carry out its duties, making information available in all three languages.