Opposition faction backs biometrics for future elections

May 21, 2022 News

Kaieteur News – The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) is mulling the use of Biometrics, such as fingerprint and retina identification at the polling booths in future General and Regional Elections, a move that has since found support with at least one faction of the political opposition, the Alliance for Change (AFC).

An example of a Biometric/Electronic voting machine

The party in a public missive yesterday said it has taken note of the information in the public space that the PPP appointed commissioners on GECOM are optimistic that Biometrics could be added to Guyana’s Election Day process to eliminate the possibility of impersonation.
As such, it was noted that “undoubtedly, using Biometrics, such as fingerprint and retina identification at the polling booth, will deter culprits who have a penchant for corrupting the system through illegal activities.”
According to the party, technology for this purpose will help minimize the suspicions and reality of impersonation and will further enhance confidence in the electoral process.
“Having come through the experience of the national recount and seeing the recent IRI poll of Guyanese who believe that the last Elections were not above board, the AFC strongly believes that the use of Biometrics in future elections would be a prudent move that would add to our democracy.”
As such, the party has since adopted a position of encouraging the government to act “post-haste with the discussion and the necessary legislative arrangements for implementation.”
This is since the party contends that the statistics of the National Recount revealed that impersonation was high and impacted the outcome and that “this must never occur again.”
Regarding the division of Region Four into three subdivisions as proposed by the Attorney General, Anil Nandlall in his Electoral Amendments, the AFC firmly restated its opposition to the proposal, calling it political gimmickry.
This publication on Thursday had reported that Commissioners at GECOM are supporting the use of a biometric system to assist with transparency when it comes to voting at elections.
The representatives of both, the current Peoples Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) government as well as the Opposition, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU+AFC), have agreed that the use of the technological system would greatly help in preventing many inconsistencies raised during the voting process at elections.
Opposition Commissioner Vincent Alexander had told the Kaieteur News that the biometric technology would assist in ensuring that all persons who cast a ballot during elections do not do so in the name of deceased persons, migrants and other absent individuals.
He said that the matter would address the issue of the names of dead persons being on the voters list.
Double voting and ghost voting have been contentious issues given the difficulty in removing the names of deceased persons whose deaths have not been registered. The claims of ghost voting were even more pronounced, especially by the Opposition party following the contentious 2020 elections.
The APNU+AFC had argued strongly that the voter’s list is bloated with the names of deceased persons as those unregistered deaths remained on the National Register of Registrants, from where the voter’s list is deduced. This situation causes irregularities when persons illegally access the identification cards of deceased persons and vote in their names. Alexander told the newspaper that the biometric system will be part of the suggestions being offered in relation to the election law reform. “Our proposal was not on the substance. It was more on the procedure, but I am pushing the biometric idea,” the Commissioner highlighted.
Additionally, PPP/C Commissioner Bibi Shadick also showed support for the use of the biometric system. In fact, Shadick said she had brought up the idea of using a biometric system more than a year ago. The idea, she said, has nonetheless been floating around since the chairmanship of Dr. Steve Surujbally, who left the GECOM in 2017.

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