The Elections Department (ELD) plans to introduce electronic voter registration at the next General Election (GE), with a tender to procure the necessary equipment set to be called later this year. This comes after the Government previously announced plans to pilot e-registration at a few constituencies during the Presidential Election last September. But the effort did not materialise as there was no contest. Responding to TODAY’s queries, an ELD spokesperson said on Tuesday (Sept 11): “If all goes according to plan, we intend to implement this across all polling stations at the next GE.”
If the system is not in place by the next polls, which must be called by January 2021, TODAY understands that ELD will continue using the current system, where election officials will search for and strike off a voter’s name from a physical copy of the polling station register.
ELD said that under the new workflow, an election official will scan a voter’s NRIC using a barcode scanner to register the voter.
The equipment will not be connected to the Internet for cyber security reasons, and there is also no change to the voting process, which will still be done by paper ballot. “It is only the medium for registering voters that is different,” the spokesperson added.
Full Article: TODAYonline | Electronic voter registration on the cards for next General Election.
