The PNG Electoral Commission is ready to rollout out the Biometric voting system leading up to the National General Elections next year.
The Electoral Commission’s Acting Commissioner, Simon Sinai revealed this last week and said the PNGEC is ready to commence with the verification and identification of voters using the Biometric voting system.
Mr Sinai expressed that if approved, the biometric system will be the way forward for future elections in the country. Starting small scale in cities like Port Moresby will benefit the rollout in the 89 electorates across PNG.
The PNGEC has 120 machines available to commence the biometric project, but will need more.
Sinai said: “For interest sake, we will start on a smaller scale. In Port Moresby, we got the machines to do it and we have tested it and we are confident to do verification and identification of voters and issuing of ID cards to the voters in the city, Lae, Madang, Rabaul, Kokopo, maybe Mount Hagen, all those big areas at a smaller scale.”
“Firstly, we would like to see an electoral roll that is containing all the photos of the voters and have the machine that can snap voters and produce their photo, put it into the system and print an ID card right there,” Mr Sinai said.
He added that PNGEC is looking to purchase more biometric machines in order to cover the country’s 331 local level governments before the next general elections.