EVALUATING USER SATISFACTION OF THE ELECTIONS MANAGEMENT SYSTEM DURING MALAWI’S 2019 TRIPARTITE AND 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

Abstract

The study aimed to measure user satisfaction of MECs Elections Management System during Malawi’s 2019 Tripartite and 2020 Presidential Elections. Information systems need to be evaluated to examine not only their effectiveness but also deficiencies to inform systems improvement. There was a noted evaluation gap of MECs EMS which is at the very heart of elections management in Malawi, and this has negatively impacted MEC’s ability to attain critical knowledge of how well the EMS is perceived to perform. Instead, election evaluations have primarily focused on the administration of the elections which involves analysis of administration activities at various stages of the electoral process, lightly touching on the EMS. The study adopted a descriptive cross-sectional quantitative approach to measure users’ perceptions of Information, System and Service quality of the EMS to help attain and understand user satisfaction levels. Data was collected through an online survey and analysed collected data using descriptive statistics and chi square tests to find out significant relationships amongst variables. The information provided by the EMS was found highly satisfactory to its users in usefulness, currency, preciseness, comprehension, organisation, totality, and reliability. The system quality was found highly satisfactory to its users in ease of use, reliability, availability, response time, integration and security. Service was found highly satisfactory to its users in consistency, promptness, courtesy, assuredness, discreetness, communication, capability, reliability, accessibility and empathy.