What is the goal during elections?

IN the answer to the question in our headline lies the success or failure of elections if history is any guide.
Better education ought to improve the behaviour, welfare and condition of a population.
History also tells us that is not true.
It is a fair distance between 1964 when the first national general election was held for the first House of Assembly and 2022 which has just concluded election for the 11th National Parliament.
In the intervening 58 years, 13 general elections have been held, three for the House of Assembly and 10 for the National Parliament.
There was no University of Papua New Guinea or the University of Technology or any other institutions of higher learning in 1964.
They happened as a result of the desires and decisions made by that house and subsequent houses.
Yet the first elections that were held in the territories, among a population considered “natives with no education”, were peaceful and turnout at the elections were excellent from the records of the time that has passed on to us today.
The natives’ choices for membership to that first house did not reflect a submissive and beaten down lot as might be expected of our fathers at that time of our journey to nationhood.
Of the 44 constituencies that were open to both indigenes (natives as they were generally referred to) and Europeans (the general description of all Caucasians of whatever nationality at the time), 38 were won by the indigenous, 35 of whom were completely new to any form of representative government.
And these were the fathers who, with the help of a handful of appointed officials and the Australian government, put in place many of the organs of Government and institutions of State that we enjoy today and set the process in motion for the National Constitution of PNG.
A walk back in history is instructive today as PNG flounders in the wake of a very badly held general election.
Following a United Nations mission in 1962 it was decided that the 37-member Legislative Council at the time was to be replaced by a 64-member House of Assembly, 54 of whom were to be elected members and 10 officials. General elections were set for 1964.
Ten constituencies were to be reserved for only Europeans who numbered about 25,000 out of a total recorded population of two million.
Europeans could, of course, run in the non-reserved electorates.
Voting was preferential and voters cast two votes, one for the general constituency and one for the reserved constituency.
Voting age was set at 21.
An electoral roll was for the first time created from throughout the territories in 1963 with field staff from the department of native affairs visiting over 12,000 villages to record the names of all adults.
A total of 1,029,192 eligible voters were registered.
A candidate was required to have lived in the constituency in which s/he was standing for at least 12 months or have a home there.
For the 54 seats, a total of 299 candidates contested, of which 238 were indigenous and 61 Europeans.
Thirty one Europeans contested the 10 reserved seats and 30 more ran in the general constituencies.
Of the 44 open constituencies, 38 were won by indigenous candidates and six by Europeans.
Of the 38 only John Guise, Pita Simogun and Nicholas Brokam had previous legislative council experience.
Elections were peaceful and the turnout was 65 per cent.
This comparison should set to rest any suggestions that computers or electronics can make any difference in safeguarding future elections.
The electoral process is workable under its present format.
It is the attitudes of the candidates and the voters and especially what it is they aim at achieving in the legislature that determines the final outcome.
In 1964, our forefathers wanted a native legislature and progress towards self-government and Independence.
What is it the far more educated descendants of theirs today want for or from their legislature?