The Opposition has been insisting that the use of biometrics technology be introduced in Guyana for registration and voting identification before the elections scheduled for later this year, claiming this would provide more robust protection and safeguards against voter impersonation, multiple voting, and electoral manipulation. Two months ago, the GECOM CEO had provided the Commission with a feasibility study on the use of electronic fingerprint biometrics for registration.
The GECOM Chair noted: “Introducing a system of biometric identification of voters digitally as a mandatory, or only, means of identification would impose an additional requirement for voters and would therefore be unconstitutional. It may, however, be used as an additional mechanism to aid in the identification of electors, where if a person who is eligible to vote cannot be identified using the digital fingerprint, the other methods can still be used to identify him and allow him to vote. It is my opinion that GECOM could introduce it in that way as another tool to identify persons. However, in this regard legislation will be necessary for the introduction of such tools.” However, breaking a tie last week between the Government Commissioners (against) and the Opposition Commissioners (for), she ruled that there was insufficient time for the technology to be introduced.
The Opposition countered, “We in the Opposition believe, from experiences in other countries (such as Ghana), that GECOM can ensure there is biometrics. Ghana, during COVID-19 and all the challenges it posed, implemented biometrics in under two months. It is important to note that Ghana has 17 million registered voters in comparison to Guyana’s 750,000.” They launched a scathing attack on the Chair by questioning her motives. Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton demanded that outside experts be hired to make that call. For the Government, VP Bharrat Jagdeo asserted that the calls for biometrics were merely to distract from the Opposition’s sordid rigging record; to prevent people from voting if there are glitches in the new system and most pertinently, to challenge the results as they did after agreeing with the introduction of IDs in 1997.
Now since our history of conflict over elections is quite similar to the experience of several African countries – including Ghana, to which the Opposition alluded – it might be useful to examine that experience that was intended to address similar concerns touted by our Opposition. Ghana first deployed biometrics during its 2012 general elections for voter registration but the system was later criticised for failures. Technology from other suppliers had to be used for the 2024, 2016 and 2020 elections. In 2020, the new vendor said its biometric system helped expunge almost 15,000 duplicate registrations for the elections that year. After which, the verdict was that while the use of the biometric verification system was generally successful, some glitches and failures had to be addressed. For instance, the fingerprints of the elderly had altered and it was fortuitous they had a bimodal system where the facial recognition could be used.
Kenya is another country where biometrics was introduced – there in 2013. There were numerous glitches – such as replicating rejected votes eight times – that after the results were declared Opposition Leader Raila Odinga contested Uhuru Kenyatta’s victory judicially. All the equipment were jettisoned and replaced for the 2017 elections, but ended with Odinga again taking recourse to the Courts – this time that the servers were hacked. The Courts annulled the elections and new elections were held which Odinga boycotted because his demands for changes in the voting system were not met.
For the last elections in 2022, one third of the equipment had to be replaced, yet they had to fall back on a manual register when the biometric system failed in several polling stations. Odinga, however, challenged winner William Ruto in the courts, but this was dismissed. Similar challenges to biometrics-based voting systems were uncovered in Mozambique and Uganda.
It is clear that while there are benefits to introducing biometrics, it will not solve the problem of an Opposition that does not accept defeat.
