The electronic voting kit for the Electronic Voting Registration (EVR) will arrive into the country next week from Canada. Elections Office logistic team leader Major Isoa Loanakadavu confirmed CODE Corporation in Canada would supply the Biometric Voter Registration System (BVRS) under the Biometric Voter Registration agreement between the corporation and the government of Fiji. “The electronic voting kit will be arriving from Canada three weeks prior to the launch on July 3,” Major Loanakadavu said. Training on the use of the EVR will begin once the BVRS arrives. “Training will be conducted by representatives from CODE Corporation as part of the contract signed during the agreement,” Major Loanakadavu said. “They will conduct training to trainers. These trainers will then be deployed to centres to conduct training on the selected personnel (1118 personnel) prior to the actual deployment for the EVR.”
The BVRS, according to the CODE Corporation website, is a highly advanced biometric information system which allows the enrolment and identification of millions of voters quickly and unmistakably. BVRS is expected to minimise election fraud and at the same time accelerate the voter identification process. During the EVR, BVRS uses mobile biometric station to capture data for each person at the Voting Registration Centres (VRC). This includes four fingerprints of each person, a face photo and personal information in text format.
The registration process takes three to five minutes on average. Once the EVR is finished, the database uploads to the central via internet connection or encrypted flash drive. On election day, voters are expected to attend the same VRC they were registered at.
Full Article: Electronic voting – Fiji Times Online.
