I'm at a meeting for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, where government delegates are voting on whether to protect endangered species from excessive international trade. These happen every two or three years. In the good old days, delegates' votes were collected on little pieces of paper and counted. It was time-consuming, as delegates might be called upon to vote on many issues a day for a two-week meeting. Technology, thankfully, has intervened, in the form of a nifty electronic voting system. Each member country inserts its voting card into the machine and presses "2" for yes, "3" for no and "4" to abstain. In thirty seconds the job is done.



What could be simpler?





A lot, it seems. This year, about 137 countries are represented. Yesterday, during a vote on protection for a shark called the porbeagle (Lamna nasus) the electronic voting system seized up, and two nations complained the voting machine had just "flashed red". So the chair ordered the technicians to reset the system. Before a new vote on the porbeagle, a test was ordered. "Could everyone please vote 'Yes' now?" he said. After thirty seconds the chair said he had received votes from everyone in the room, and that the system was working. He then observed dryly that of the 137 nations that had been supposed to vote 'Yes', seven had voted 'No' and two had voted to abstain.The technology may work perfectly. Humans, it appears, do not. But the imperfect "Yes" vote gave us some idea of the error level with the voting system at these meetings. When a species such as the hammerhead shark (Sphyrna lewini) fails to by a handful of votes to reach protection from trade, might this be down to fumble fingers?Today another test was conducted and this time the delegates did a little better. They were asked to answer a question. "Is Doha the capital of Qatar?" asked the chair. All nations except Cameroon, Croatia and China managed to vote "Yes". One voted "No", and two abstained. The slightly frustrated chair decided a third test was necessary, and everyone was just ordered to vote "Yes". This time Nigeria and Azerbaijan managed to abstain. After some kerfuffle a technician confirmed that both countries had simply pressed the wrong button.The lesson from all this is that electronic voting systems can only be as accurate as the humans that operate them. Often, at two-week international conferences, these humans are bored, full or hung over. That means it is important to have a good idea of the voting error, which may need to be tested on several occasions . If one cannot design an idiot-proof system, then counting the number of idiots using the system is surely the next best thing.

(The photograph of a rather unprotected porbeagle is from pfig on Flickr.)