Sri Lanka, Feb. 9 -- In January, a Cabinet appointed committee published a call for views and suggestions on a mechanism to enable citizens living abroad to vote in Sri Lankan elections. The closing date is the 15th of February. Several organisations have already responded, suggesting among other things that the more urgent problems are the difficulties experienced by the bed-ridden and the disabled, and by groups such as hospital and security employees who live in this country but are unable to vote.

In 2020, amidst the COVID-19 lockdowns and fears that voters congregating in polling booths would pose dangers, I supervised research on how other countries had addressed the challenges of remote voting. voting at a location other than a tr...