Uganda Deploys Biometric Technology to Improve General Election Transparency
February 08 2016 - 3:00AM
Business Wire
In ten days, on February 18th Uganda’s General Elections will
take place. The Electoral Commission of Uganda is partnering with
Smartmatic, the world’s leading electronic voting technology
company, to use a biometric voter authentication technology
solution that validates the identity of voters prior to ballot
casting.
Smartmatic has developed a central system to store and manage
the biographic and biometric information of all registered voters.
This system, which will be synchronized with Uganda’s National ID
database, will perform quality control and integrity checks, and
convert all the data into a format that can be used to process
votes with accuracy and speed on Election Day.
“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,” said Mr. Sam
Rwakoojo, Secretary of the Uganda Electoral Commission.
Smartmatic 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.
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.
“We welcome opportunities like this to put our experience and
the work of our Research & Development labs into action.
Biometrics is an extremely efficient tool to improve election
transparency and facilitate polling station management. With just
ten days to go until the elections, we are proud to be helping
Uganda take this step forward,” said Dr. Khodr Akil, Smartmatic’s
Sales Vice President for Africa.
About Smartmatic
Founded in the USA in 2000, Smartmatic's commitment to
innovative technology and democracy has helped it to become the
global leader of the electronic voting industry. Today, out of the
eight countries pioneering election automation Smartmatic provides
technology and services to six of them.
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SmartmaticAlice Macdonald, +44
7525149995Alice.macdonald@smartmatic.com