Countries adopt biometrics for voter ID, fraud prevention Nigeria, Brazil choose fingerprint to help secure elections Jill Jaracz Contributing Editor, AVISIAN Publications A number of countries have turned to biometrics as a solution to prevent voter fraud during national elections, and they’ve met with surprising success.
Biometrics creates an inexpensive, effective one-to-one relationship between the person and the entitlement, and don’t depend on the recipient being literate, says Trytten.
California-based DigitalPersona is assisting two countries trying to maintain fair and democratic elections. Founded in 1996, DigitalPersona started with the belief that the fingerprint reader would be the next must-have computer peripheral. While that has not yet panned out, the company has found that biometrics can “guarantee secure authentication in civil identification,” explains Chris Trytten, director of product marketing for DigitalPersona.
Nigeria requires biometrics for recent national elections
A fingerprint is “something you are,” says Trytten, adding that with a fingerprint you can prove you were definitely at some place at some point in time. DigitalPersona developed a product called Civil ID to help governments identify individuals through fingerprints. According to Trytten, DigitalPersona’s Civil ID product has historically been a high-end system designed for border control, civil documents and law enforcement. However, some have started to adopt the product as a way to provide secure voting and government services by reducing fraud.
Pakistan looks to biometrics to prevent electoral fraud Election Authorities in Islamabad, Pakistan are working on a new voting system that would include biometrics to impede fraudulent voting. They plan to introduce a system that would include ballot papers inscribed with a watermark, magnetic ink stamps for voters and biometric authentication. The new system would better identify attempted voter fraud. According to an article from The Express Tribune, fraud was a significant issue in the 2008 general elections when more than 37 million bogus votes were cast from a population of just 81 million Pakistani registered voters. In addition to the new technological assurances for a cleaner election, voters in Pakistan would face stiff penalties – including fines and a minimum of three years in prison – if discovered attempting to defraud the electoral system.
36
Winter 2011
DigitalPersona’s Civil ID service was an instrumental part of Nigeria’s 2011 national elections. “In Africa, a lot of countries are embracing democracy,” says Trytten. Unfortunately, he explains, many do not trust the election process, and elections often lead to civil unrest or even war. “The foundation for democracy [necessitates] secure voting systems to provide results people trust,” says Trytten. Nigeria became a democracy in 1999, but subsequent elections suffered from voter fraud as people voted more than once and ballots we cast by dead and fictitious people. In an effort to break this cycle, Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) decided to integrate biometrics into the voter registration process. INEC selected three vendors – Zinox Technologies, Ltd., Haier Electrical Appliances Corp. Ltd. and Avante International Technology Inc. – to provide voting registration systems. Each used DigitalPersona’s fingerprint readers to authenticate voters. The new system was used in the April 2011 national election. To prepare for the election INEC began a nationwide voter registration drive in January 2011. DigitalPersona provided 132,000 fingerprint readers to the local and international integrators of the Nigerian Direct Data Capture System. To register voters, INEC set up registration stations across the country. Voters gave the registrars their personal information, took a photograph and had all ten fingerprints captured. Upon completion of the registration process, voters received a photo ID card. INEC was able to register 73 million voters across the country, nearly half of the country’s 152 million people. Those who had not enrolled were prohibited from voting. When casting a ballot, a voter showed the card at the polling location. The registrars accessed the voter’s record, matched the face to the photograph, and captured the fingerprint. This new print template