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| Source: Pulsosocial.com |
With over 180 million people calling it
home, Pakistan is the sixth most populated country in the world and it is the
second largest Muslim democracy after Indonesia. Given such proportions, running
an election for the national assembly and for its four provincial assemblies is
quite the daunting task. That’s one of the main reasons Pakistan is advancing
the adoption of voting technology.
Just to give an example, the most recent
general election, held in May 2013 saw over 86 million registered voters cast a
vote. The election was held in 272 constituencies, making for a quite the
logistical challenge for NADRA (National Database and Registration Authority), the
autonomous and independent institution of the Pakistani government responsible
for databases and sensitive registration information.
In order for Pakistan to continue improving
the quality of future elections, NADRA is slowly introducing what it calls a “foolproof”
e-voting machine system. This system is designed to “control rigging in the
polls.” by authenticating voters via biometrics.
The identity of the voter is automatically
verified biometrically before the voter has the opportunity to cast a ballot.
The system is still a work in progress and will require further refinement, but
NADRA’s, Chairman Tariq Malik, says that this will prevent any “bogus voting”.
The sentiment is echoed by Muhammad
Daheem of the Frontier
Post who writes that the new system will “eliminate the element of fake
vote casting and rigging of any type in elections.”
Biometric authentication of voters is the
most reliable methodology to guarantee that voter impersonation becomes a thing
of the past. Technologies like the one being developed in Pakistan approach
these challenges head-on, providing a “foolproof” system that verifies the
identity of voters.
Under the proposal, the refined thumb
impression verifying e-voting machine would be placed at all polling stations
across the country of Pakistan.
A key
element in this system is the voter identification card, which is then
checked against the fingerprints of voters as stored in the NADRA biometric
database. Following verification through the Voter Identification Unit, the voter
then proceeds to the Vote Casting Unit where the relevant constituency and list
of candidates is displayed. Finally, the Result Management Unit can record and
tally the votes accordingly. The computer-generated report can then be
reconciled against the manual counting of printed ballots as needed.
