“Brazil already uses biometrics in its elections.”
The next general election in Brazil is taking place in October and in preparation the country’s Superior Electoral Court has awarded a contract to Smartmatic in order to aid votership in the nation’s 15 most isolated states.
The contract will see the deployment of 1,424 Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) SABRE satellite terminals in service of the elections. These are portable machines that feature an easy-to-use interface, making them ideal for the job: bringing the power of voting to rural areas in Brazil.
Brazil already uses biometrics in its elections. Smartmatic names the country as a forerunner in election modernization: a country that began using electronic voter terminals in 1996. Nowadays the terminals that Brazil uses for elections efficiency feature voting, transmission, consolidation and awarding capabilities, as well as the ability to publish results. This is all in addition to the aforementioned biometric authentication.
Bringing the vote to the remote is an initiative of accessibility, one that fits right in line with Smartmatic’s mission to create technology and offer services that have “a profound social impact.”
Antonio Mugica, Smartmatic’s CEO, explains: “Enfranchising voters in the most remote areas of the fifth largest country of the planet is the kind of project that gives a special meaning to what Smartmatic does. We are thrilled to participate again in a Brazilian election working alongside one of the most forward-looking electoral commissions in the world.”
Related reading:
Recently in the Philippines (another country that uses biometrics in elections) the Commissions of Elections announced that biometric registration is now mandatory for voting.
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June 12, 2014 – by Peter B. Counter
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