(Photo: Provided by Smartmatic website)

Synchronization of Ugandan national resident registration database through central system

Uganda will hold general elections in just ten days, on February 18th. The Ugandan Electoral Commission has partnered with Smartmatic, a global leader in e-voting technology, to use a biometric voter authentication solution to verify voters' identities before they can cast their ballots.

Smartmatic has developed a central system to store and manage the personal and biometric information of all registered voters. This system will synchronize with Uganda's National ID database, ensuring quality and integrity, and then converting all data into a format that can be used to accurately and quickly process votes on election day.

“Managing voter identity is crucial in elections,” said Sam Rwakoojo, Secretary General of the Uganda Electoral Commission. “This partnership with Smartmatic will provide frontline election operators with the technology, services and know-how they need to successfully ensure transparent elections.” He added, “By accurately and quickly verifying the identity of each voter through biometrics, we will ensure Uganda’s ‘one voter, one vote’ principle.”

35,000 biometric devices installed at 30,000 voting stations in Uganda.

Smartmatic plans to install approximately 35,000 biometric devices at 30,000 polling stations across Uganda and supply and build the hardware and software to operate a voter biometric verification platform. It is also providing training on equipment warehousing, maintenance, delivery, project management, and election management to election workers and election officials.

As biometric authentication technology becomes more widespread around the world, Uganda, like many countries, is taking steps to eliminate one of the most prevalent forms of electoral fraud: fake voters.

"We are excited to have this opportunity to put our experience and the findings from our labs into practice," said Khodr Akil, Smartmatic's Vice President of Sales for Africa. "Biometrics is an effective tool to enhance election transparency and facilitate polling place management. We are proud to have enabled Uganda to take this forward-thinking step just 10 days before the election."