A recent forum on biometric voter authentication drew a sizeable crowd of election stakeholders in Pakistan.
The event, organized by London-based elections company Smartmatic, gathered Members of the Parliament, representatives from the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), political parties, international granting agencies, non-government organizations, and the media.
British Deputy High Commissioner, John Tucknott greeted the ECP’s progress in its proposal to improve Pakistan electoral system and also highlighted how countries all around the world can benefit from voting technologies.
The event was highlighted by a talk from Smartmatic’s Cesar Flores who discussed the benefits of “Biometric Voter Authentication and Electronic Voting” and gave an actual demonstration of the handheld biometric authentication device which was recently used in the last elections in Venezuela.
Biometric voter authentication has become a hot topic n Pakistan lately after Venezuela made history by having 100% of its voters biometrically authenticated in its 2013 municipal election. This marked the first time in the world that a nationwide election became fully automated at every step, from authentication to the broadcast of official results.
During the forum, participants also discussed other successful implementation of automated elections all over the world, most notably the Philippines and Ecuador, where 100% of the results were released within an hour after the polls closed, the fastest in the world ever.
Pakistan is seeking to improve its electoral systems and is in the market for solutions that would lead to a more transparent, faster, and 100% auditable polls.
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