Start biometric voter registration

WITH only 11 months to the start of the 2022 national election process, there appears to be little or no real progress made on biometric voter registration.
Why the use of this technology is critical is simply to avoid the many mistakes and abuses of the electoral process in the past.
This next election can and should be a lot fairer and more credible than previous ones, given that there are avenues to reduce or eliminate errors of past elections.
It would be a national shame to not use technology that is available, accessible and proven successful in other countries or similar democracies like Papua New Guinea’s at least.
The Electoral Commission needs immediate necessary funding and expertise to have this mechanism in place as it is perhaps the surest way to eliminate election fraud and multiple voting that have been commonplace in the past.
The use of the common roll alone to verify the identity and number of voters in electorates has failed in some places as candidates or voters have time and again challenged the legitimacy of the roll and, therefore, the end result of elections based on such voter listings.
The compromised election results also contribute to the high number of petitions, which both the parties and the State spend a lot of money and time that could be better spent.
A lot of what has been noted by election observers in the past, including poor voter identification, has not been rectified and these issues emerge again in succeeding elections.
This can be blamed on a chronic shortage of resources or simply a lack of political will from the top to follow through on recommendations proposed.
Former National Planning minister and Yangoru-Saussia MP Richard Maru, who in his time championed biometric voter registration and tried to improve the national identity registration system, this week voiced concerns over the slow progress made so far.
A common roll verification will cost around K230 million, according to the electoral commissioner.
If the voter ID system is established with a portion of that funding, the commissioner expects that the cost of maintaining or updating the common roll for the 2027 election would be much less.
The biometric system has three parts: Data setting, enrolment of voter names; voting, and counting and result management.
The biometric system can be rolled out in 12 months but time is now against the commission, however, it must be done for the sake of a fair election based on a genuine list of electors.
To reiterate what Maru has said, we must start with biometric voter registration and identification and upgrade the common roll on the basis of that data.
That way, every citizen of voting age would register and importantly vote in person based on the electronic ID on the common roll.
A national election is a critical periodic event that every eligible citizen is expected to actively partake in to select the next group of men and women to become parliamentarians who, despite what many may think, hold tremendous power to determine what direction the country takes.
Unfortunately, the electoral process has been compromised so much that some citizens have lost interest in voting and, thereby, foregone one of their basic democratic rights.
This has been the case, especially for women and persons living with disabilities in some electorates.
It is simple; if we don’t get it right and conduct a good election, we shouldn’t expect the best in the front seat to unravel the real potential of our richly endowed nation.