Uganda's 2016 elections: Biometrics verification on polling day

By Timon Ainebyoona

As the 2016 general elections draws closer and the different political actors announce their road maps, as we all gear up to face yet another election, I marvel at one thing about which we should all have our minds set at rest.

Biometrics verification on polling day!!

As it stands today almost every African election is accompanied by complaints about the reliability of the voter register, allegations of double voting, votes by minors and foreigners. It is no wonder electoral commissions are looking for ways to address these concerns. Hence the Biometric voter technologies craze.

 A recurrent argument for introducing biometrics is that not only do they help reduce fraud and make elections ‘cleaner,’ they make contested election results less likely.

To address the above no fewer than 25 African countries (Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Nigeria, Zambia, Malawi, Rwanda, Senegal, Somaliland, Mali, Togo, Ghana e.t.c) have already held elections employing biometric voter technologies.

What’s shocking though is the dismal performance of these technologies on polling days. In Kenya’s 2013 elections the problems were manifold, from biometric scanners that couldn’t recognize fingerprints to servers that crashed.

In Ghana’s presidential elections of 2012, biometric kits failed, forcing voting to be extended into a second day. In Somaliland, the biometric voters’ register caused such a skirmish in the presidential polls that organizers reverted to manual for local elections.

Talk of the recently concluded Nigerian polls the biometric voter card technology failed even the president (hmm! crazy world!). It’s most always a “technological fiasco” wherever these technologies have been used.

Mind you these technologies don’t come cheap. In Ivory Coast, the French enterprise SAGEM received $266 million for the production of biometric identity cards for the 2010 elections. In DRC, the elections cost $360 million, with $58 million of that spent on biometrics. In Ghana, the figures were $124 million and $76 million respectively.

It is curious that countries like India with over 814 million voting population use biometric verification and vote with little hitches. However, many African countries are struggling with biometric verification at high rates. Is it that African countries are buying less efficient biometric verification machines? Do African countries have problems with using the biometric machines? Or is it a case of not having enough technical personnel to man these equipments?

All the above don’t spell good news to Uganda a country heading to the polls in barely nine (9) months time. But that's not to say we shouldn't try these technologies. Obviously we should. If anything, we should learn from these would be “bad experiences” and use them to critique our own self as we head to the polls.

And as good luck would have it, we’re slightly in a better position to achieve what most countries have failed should we choose to go biometric verification on polling day.

As we speak the Electoral Commission (EC) boasts of a biometric voter Registrar (Currently being updated at every polling station country wide), a fairly trained human resource (enrollment officers and the entire EC team), and an electorate aware of biometrics all courtesy of the multi sectral ID registration exercise.

So, do we go “biometrics”? I don’t think we even have a choice. In a sense, it’s already happening. We just have to join the bandwagon. Biometrics technologies are the heart of elections in today’s modern world and it’s probably too late for us not to use them.

The writer is a private ICT practitioner