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Doubts cast on Uganda’s biometric voter kits

Saturday January 23 2016
EAUgRegistration

Electoral Commission workers look for the name of a voter at a polling station in Kampala. The Biometric Voter Verification System, to be used in this year’s general election, has come under scrutiny. FILE PHOTO | ROBERTO SCHMIDT |

Questions have arisen over the rollout of the Biometric Voter Verification System in Uganda, especially after serious challenges were experienced in the voter registration exercise. The system has also faced numerous hurdles in other African countries.

Recently, the Electoral Commission launched the system, which is meant to verify voters at polling stations. It does this by matching a voter’s fingerprints to their photograph, name, date and place of birth, as contained in the register.

The system is also intended to eliminate multiple voting — a practice widely blamed for election rigging incidents documented in the 2001 and 2006 presidential elections, which were challenged in the Supreme Court.

The Electoral Commission will be relying on the register, which was compiled during the national identification exercise. The national identity cards will also be vital in the February 18 general election because under the Registration of Persons Act of 2015, persons over 16 years of age are eligible to apply for national identity cards.

Going by this, such individuals could vote before they are 18 years old provided their names appear on the register, which is with the Electoral Commission.

Although Internal Affairs Minister Rose Akol said that about two million identity cards have not yet been claimed, there are complaints that some cards contain the wrong information, such as names not corresponding with photographs or names spelled wrongly.

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For those who picked up the cards, it is unclear how the Biometric Voter Verification System will scan their details in case the information on the register does not match.

However, legal experts argue that the Electoral Commission ought to have updated its own register, which it used for the 2011 election as stipulated in the Electoral Commission Act, and should have issued voters cards to new voters.

Alternatively, it should have sought a legal mandate to adopt the civil register compiled during the national identity card registration exercise. 

“The current voter register was constructed without reference to any law. The Electoral Commissionalso discarded the original register, which it compiled for the 2011 elections without a legal mandate and ended up deleting names of registered people without following the law,” said Medard Segoona, a lawyer and Member of Parliament affiliated to the Democratic

“The Electoral Commission cannot tell us that people will use their national identity cards to vote. That is not what the law says,” said Ken Lukyamuzi, a Member of Parliament from the Conservative Party and shadow minister for the environment.

Norbert Mao, a former presidential candidate in the 2011 elections, for instance, is not a registered voter as per the new register and is considering taking legal action, which could pave the way for other cases.

“One of the objectives of the national ID system was to assist the electoral process in identifying voters and minimise cheating,” said Freddie Ruhindi, Uganda’s Attorney General.

There is concern that the late introduction of the electronic system could fail as it has not been tested in a real-life situation.

“The system is being introduced only four weeks to the election so we need to ensure that the people who are going to use the machines know how to use them and the public needs to know and understand the importance of the machines,” said Crispy Kaheru, co-ordinator of the Citizens Coalition for Electoral Democracy in Uganda.

Three weeks ago, these issues were raised before parliament, with calls for fresh registration of voters and issuance of national identity cards, but Ms Akol said resources are not available to redo the exercises.

Case studies

In Pakistan, for example, an amendment to its electoral laws was made in 2010 prior to the introduction of digital technology.
This was to allow for creation of linkages between its civil and electoral registry by requiring voters to obtain computerised national identification cards, which are then used in electoral polls. This was to stop duplication of records in addition to allowing polling officials to verify voters.  

Kenya tested the machines in 2010 during the referendum before adopting the technology. It repeated the test again in a mock election in two constituencies in 2013 prior to the general election held in the same year. However, the system faced major challenges.

In 2012, Ghana introduced the system to ensure proof of voters at polling stations, but the biometric machines could not read fingerprints of elderly people and later broke down.

France and Belgium are the only European countries that have retained the system while the others have abandoned it owing to failures and its high costs.

Brazil has embarked on introduction of the Biometric Voter Verification System in phases, with 11 million out of 142 million voters covered so far, while full implementation is scheduled for 2018.

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