 |
| Biometric Voting Machine |
The
Electoral Commission has ordered 26,000 biometric verification machines to be used at the various
polling stations nationwide, in order to enhance the integrity of the 2012
presidential and parliamentary elections.
The
machines, The Chronicle was told, are currently being transported to Accra for
clearance by the end of this month. Upon its arrival, each of the 25,000
polling stations across the country is expected to have one during the general
polls, while the remaining machines would be used as backup at the region and
district levels.
The
Director of ICT, Electoral Commission, Hubert Akumiah, made this observation
last Saturday at Ho during a workshop to build on the capacity of the
Parliamentary Press Corps on election reporting. Already, the EC has at its
disposal a few of the biometric verification machines it intends to put to test
in the first week of October, to see how best it would function before the
general polls.
"We
have several samples of the verification machine in the office that we are
going to use for piloting. The first piloting exercise will be done internally,
I mean at the offices of the Electoral Commission in Accra. That exercise is
slated for the first week of October. Following its success, we will then pilot
it at some constituencies before the general elections," noted Mr.
Akumeah.
The
biometric verification machine is a handheld machine used to ascertain that an
individual 'is who he says he is' or 'is who she says she is'. Biometric
verification requires a biometric system or setup to operate in.
According
to Mr. Akumiah, the verification machines would be used at the various polling
stations during the day of the elections to identify the voter in a clear and
undisputable way, reducing to a minimum the possibility of errors, and
guaranteeing the voter his or her right to express his or her vote in a
democratic way.
The use of
the Biometric Verification of Voters (BVV) for the upcoming general elections,
according to the ICT expert, was the first of its kind in any major elections
in sub-Saharan Africa. The BVV, upon its introduction, is expected to speed up
the electoral process and reduce voter queuing time, while also ensuring total
accuracy by providing very useful Election Day related statistics.
It is also
expected to combine voter validation and election reporting functionality in
one cost, while also ensuring that voters cannot vote again at the same polling
station or anywhere their data is not loaded.
In the
last two decades, the EC has embarked on electoral reforms such as the use of
indelible ink, use of Voter ID cards without photos, and the use of photo ID cards
and photo voters register. Yet the system was fraught with challenges,
including registration and voting by unqualified persons, multiple
registrations and its attendant multiple voting.
The coming
into force of the Biometric Voters Register (BVR), and now the Biometric
Verification of Voters (BVV), are, therefore, expected to address the
above-mentioned challenges that were impeding the electoral process of the
country.
The
Chronicles