Uganda to use biometric verification for 2016 election

With biometric verification technology becoming more and more widely used around the world, Uganda is one of many nations taking steps to combat one of the most pervasive forms of election fraud – voter impersonation.

US-based Business Wire reports, Uganda’s electoral commission is partnering Smartmatic, an electronic voting technology company to use biometric voter authentication technology to validate the identity of voters before they cast their ballots.

Smartmatic has developed a central system to store and manage the biographic and biometric information of all registered voters and this system, which will be synchronized with Uganda’s National ID database, will put all the data into a format that can be used to perform checks and process votes with accuracy and speed on Election Day.

According to Smartmatic, it will supply and configure all hardware and software to run the biometric voter verification platform with some 30,500 biometric devices being deployed across 30,000 polling stations.

In addition, equipment warehousing, maintenance and dispatch, project management and election training is being provided to poll workers and election officials.

Mr. Sam Rwakoojo, Secretary of Uganda’s electoral commission was quoted as saying: “Voter identity management is a critical task in any election. Thanks to this partnership we will provide our field operators with the technology, services and know-how necessary to guarantee a successful transparent election. By validating the identity of each voter via biometrics with accuracy and speed, we will ensure the principle of ‘one voter – one vote’ in Uganda,”

By Emmanuel Odonkor