Cambodia Sets 55-Day Voter Registration Drive on Biometric Deduplication

Cambodia will review its voter lists at communes and Sangkats nationwide over 55 days from October 7th to November 30th, using computerised voter registration with a biometric identification system meant to identify each voter uniquely.

National Election Committee chairman Prach Chan set out the timetable at an information meeting with stakeholders at the committee’s headquarters in Phnom Penh. Taken together with validation of the 2026 voter list, the process runs from October 7th through to February 12th, 2027, under the regulations and procedures for annual voter list review and registration.

The list being assembled is for the sixth-mandate Commune and Sangkat Council election, scheduled for June 6th, 2027. The committee says the biometric system is intended to keep that list accurate, complete, secure, up to date and of high quality.

Registration is open to eligible Cambodian citizens who have not previously registered, including anyone who will have reached the age of 18 by election day, which covers citizens born on or before June 7th, 2009. It also covers citizens who have moved their residence to a new commune or Sangkat.

Part of the work is retrospective. Biometric data, meaning photographs and fingerprints, will be updated for voters who registered in 2016 and 2017 and have never updated that information in the voter list since.

The committee will also remove names, covering voters who have died, who have been temporarily deprived of voting rights, or who have moved their residence to another commune or Sangkat, in each case against valid supporting documents.

Voters will be able to request corrections to their personal information, including polling station, name, sex, date of birth and voter registration documents, on production of valid supporting paperwork.

Prach Chan described voter registration as the first and an essential stage of the electoral process, on the basis that a voter list is an indispensable requirement for holding elections. He called on the committee to pay close attention to the process so that citizens can fully exercise their voting rights under the Constitution and applicable election laws.

The registration drive sits on identity infrastructure the country has been building out, having rolled out biometric ID cards carrying QR codes for access to digital services.

Kenya’s electoral commission has taken a different route to the same problem, adding iris scans to voter registration ahead of its own 2027 vote.

Sources: Agence Kampuchea Presse

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By the ID Tech Editorial Team