ARC->Election News
The Independent National Electoral Commission has embraced Information Technology as a means of thwarting rigging during the 2003 General Elections. This development is coming in the heel of alleged multiple registration and also ensure continuous registration of all those who become eligible to vote.
The IT facility, with a store and forward capability, had been enabled to store millions of fingerprints in a databank which the computer can match against those of a registered voter.
The technology of fingerprint database has been around and is being used by many developed countries such as the United States of America (U.S.A), which is said to have stored over 180 million fingerprints and the international police agency, INTERPOL that boasts of a databank of about 460 million fingerprints.
Such fingerprints are used for various purposes such as matching them against those of criminals or in the case of INEC against the personal data submitted by a prospective voter on the Optical mark recognition (OMR) form.
The INEC computer system goes through four stages of verification starting with the initial capture of field data, then on to the scanning stage by which the data contained on a form is scanned through a computer, which undergoes the next stage of highlighting flaws or ‘’Exceptions’’ and then dealing with them.
Under this stage, the computer queries any flaws it may have detected on a form such as age discrepancy, smudges, incomplete address, among others, and the dealing stage attends to and tries to rectify these flaws.
The critical stage, called the Automated Fingerprint Identification (AFIS) imaging system rounds off the procedure as the computer now compares the fingerprint of a candidate with what is available on the database. Any mismatch turns up as either a double or multiple registrations and the culprit in question could be identified by his personal data.
Besides using the AFIS imaging system, the Commission is also studying the possibility of establishing a dedicated communication network, using microwave link, with the over 120,000 polling stations nationwide so that it can listen in as the results are being announced at the stations.
Subject to the availability of funds, it is hoped that this network would also support results management voice recognition software using global positioning system (GPS) technology so that the voice of the returning officer is instantly recognised as the only authentic one to announce results.
© Copyright 2005 nigeriafirst.org
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