Putting a finger on Nigeria's biometric woes

To say that Nigeria has faced its fair share of problems, challenges and even crises would be a severe understatement. Even so, the government and the people of Nigeria are working hard to turn things around for the young democracy that still battles with corruption and severe infrastructure issues. Nigeria is a nation in transition and it is struggling to conduct fair, free and transparent elections. It has had a long history of government abuses that it must now work to overcome.

Working toward this ambitious and righteous goal, Nigeria implemented a biometric voter verification system for its most recent federal elections held toward the end of March 2015. Muhammadu Buhari defeated incumbent Goodluck Jonathan by the narrowest of margins, earning just under 54% of the popular vote. For this election, every Nigerian voter was supposed to receive a permanent voter card that stores his or her biometric information for the purposes of authentication at the polls.

While Nigeria has already had an Automated Fingerprint Identification System for a few years, the old system was only used to create a digital register. This was designed to prevent multiple voting at the polls by eliminating doubles from the voter register. With the new system, the identity of the voter is more accurately authenticated to prevent ballot stuffing from “ghost” votes, underage voting, and otherwise illegal or unauthorized votes.

Unfortunately, the 2015 elections in Nigeria were marred with a number of issues and these were already demonstrated in an early mock polling held a few weeks before the actual election itself. In that trial run, held in 225 polling units and 358 voting centres across the country, many of the identity card readers took as many as 20 minutes for the verification process. What's more, over 40 percent of the voters who participated in the early test were not identified by the system. They reportedly had valid voter smart cards, but they were not recognized.

These issues were not suitably rectified ahead of the March 28 election day. The election itself faced several technical glitches that resulted in the need to extend voting to the following day. Again, the verification process simply took too long or didn't work at all. The adoption of e-voting technology in general and biometric authentication in particular has been a challenge for the African continent with significant problems experienced by other elections, like those in Ghana in 2012, as well.

The causes of these problems in Nigeria are similarly mirrored across other African democracies. The malfunctioning technology can be traced back to poor implementation by electoral commissions, not performing the needed due diligence well ahead of Election Day. The lack of proper infrastructure is another concern, like the lack of reliable electricity access. In Nigeria in particular, the elections were also troubled with attacks by the Boko Haram terrorist group, who disrupted many of the day's proceedings.

Another big issue with biometric voter registration and authentication? Dirty hands. The fact of the matter is that biometric fingerprint readers will always work best with clean hands. However, a significant proportion of the Nigerian population have dirty hands from working the gardens or cooking over a charcoal or firewood stove. Their hands can be dirty or oily when they reach the polling stations and this can create problems for the biometric authentication process.

For this reason, as popular as fingerprint readers may be in the context of biometric authentication, alternative technologies may need to considered for regions such as Nigeria. There are promising possibilities afforded by iris scans, for example, though the technology may be more costly than fingerprint scanners.

The road toward a fair, open, transparent and secure election in Nigeria will be a long and arduous one filled with many more challenges to come. The experience with this year's election was surely a difficult one, but there is hope and potential for a brighter tomorrow. Positive steps were taken in Namibia's first election with e-voting technology, for example, and Tanzania would be well advised to take the Nigerian experience under consideration as it looks toward its own national election later this year.

Optical scan vs. electronic touchscreen voting machines

The democratic process in any given city, county, state or country should be reasonably independent and impartial such that it is not directly influenced by outside forces. The results of such elections should represent the will of the people in an accurate and transparent manner. This being said, government agencies from around the globe can benefit greatly by collaborating and sharing their knowledge, experience and expertise in regards to voting technologies being used.

Last October, the EVOTE 2014 International Conference was held in Austria, gathering together some of the most influential figures in the vertical of voting paradigms, administration and technology. This has since been followed by the 9th Annual International Electoral Affairs Symposium in December 2014, hosted in South Africa. One of the presenters at the event was Bruce Clark, the Kankakee County Clerk from the United States, and he spoke about the experience of the 2014 midterm elections in Illinois.

In addition to discussing poll worker training, outreach efforts, and ballot preparation, a key subject addressed was the deployment and use of optical scan machines for the election. One of the major trends observed by Clark was the shift in the type of voting equipment used in United States elections over the last 10 to 15 years.

The types of voting equipment in 2000 were incredibly varied and fragmented across the different counties in the United States. There was no systematic approach, resulting in counties using punch cards, DataVote, levers, paper, optical scan, electronic and mixed systems in a rather scattered fashion. By contrast, the vast majority of counties and townships in 2012 used either optical scan (62.8% of counties) or electronic voting machines (32.8%), resulting in less than 5% of counties using different equipment.

Given this, the Kankakee County Clerk took a closer look to compare optical scan (OS) machines with touch screen (TS) electronic voting machines. In the case of an optical scan machine, people still cast their vote on a paper ballot, but it is then inserted into the optical scan machine for tabulation. The advantages here include the fact that people like to see their vote and, in case of a discovery, there is a physical ballot to examine. However, ballot costs can be significant and there are physical limitations to the size of the ballot box.

By comparison, there are many positives associated with the use of a touchscreen direct-recording electronic voting machine (TS DRE). The accuracy level is incredibly high and the touchscreen machines facilitate far better accessibility for voters with disabilities, as they are able to cast a ballot completely unassisted. An audit trail can be produced, just like the optical scan machine, providing great accountability and transparency to further bolster the legitimacy and integrity of election results.

Naturally, considerations need to be made before implementing touchscreen voting machines. There may be issues related to calibration and, in addition to the upfont cost to purchase each machine, counties and election officials must consider the costs of equipment repair or replacement. Even so, the pros clearly far outweigh the cons and this is why touchscreen machines are understandably growing in popularity.

By working with other governments around the world and increasing competition among the vendors of electronic voting machines with touchscreen capabilities, election administrators can encourage further development in the industry, continuing to improve reliability, security and affordability.

Are biometrics the future of e-voting security?

Combating electoral fraud will always be a major priority for any given election, as the electorate must have confidence in the integrity of the election and respect the election results. Each voter needs to be properly and suitably identified, just as each ballot should be adequately and reliably verified. 

The traditional method of voter registration and voter identification typically came in the form of government-issued picture ID, as would be the case with a driver's license, but these cards can be forged and the electoral roll (sometimes called the electoral register or voter registry) can also be manipulated. Technology can play a critical role in improving both the convenience and the security of running and election, but as Joseph Hall from the Center for Democracy and Technology points out, an “uncontrolled platform” for online voting represents too much of a vulnerability. To mitigate and to overcome these problems, biometrics can be a very viable solution.

The implementation of a strong biometric-based voter identification system can address many of the common concerns and issues raised with electronic voting and with fighting electoral fraud now and into the future. The so-called “zombie vote,” where someone attempts to cast a ballot in the name of a deceased person who is mistakenly still included in the electoral register, can be eliminated, because biometric identification would be required. This is most commonly your fingerprints, but additional technologies like an iris scanner, or finger geometry recognition could also be considered.

The use of biometric technology in the context of a major election is not new, but it is still in its developing stages. It has already been used successfully to identify and authenticate every voter in the 2012 presidential elections in Venezuela and there are plans in place to adopt a biometric voter identification system in the 2015 Tanzanian national elections. This adds a much needed layer of security and accountability, as every voter is stringently identified. 

Experts have also recommended the adoption of two-factor authentication to further bolster the verification process. Voters would be identified by fingerprint or other biometric-based methods, in addition to a government-issued smart ID card or something similar. The concept of two-factor authentication is also not completely novel, as it is already available on a variety of online services like Google and Dropbox. The new Apple Pay system also uses the Touch ID fingerprint reader on newer iPhone devices to authenticate the user and to authorize the transaction. 

Indeed, looking ahead to the future, many of the technologies already in use with consumer and business space can be adapted for major elections. In the times to come, voters may identify themselves with a fingerprint scanner, a smart ID card, and by tapping their NFC-enabled smartphones on a reader at the official polling station before being granted access to a direct-recording electronic (DRE) voting machine.

Technology is very much at the core of our modern existence and it infiltrates every aspect of daily life, from online socialization to online banking, secure mobile payments to the submission and processing of confidential government forms. There are technological hurdles to overcome with biometrics in the context of elections, but these are the hurdles that need to be suitably addressed in order for elections to move forward into the future.