Solomon Islands gets biometric voter registration kits from ESI

Electoral Services International (ESI), a Canadian firm, will be responsible for the electronic biometric voter registration for the upcoming 2014 Parliamentary elections in Solomon Islands.

In July, the Minister of Home Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister Manasseh Maelanga for Solomon Islands and Gordon Sinclair, VP of Business Development for ESI signed an agreement of understanding.

Specifically, ESI will be responsible for voter registration, cleaning the present voters’ roll and producing a clean list for the Electoral Commission in Honiara. Work is set to start in August 2013 and will end in the beginning of 2014.

The project also aims to help the Electoral Commission in the country to centralize its data and to provide voters with ID cards as well as the matching and verification of biometric data using fingerprint and facial data.

Based on the latest statistics, there are 350,000 eligible voters in the country.

Reported previously, ESI – formerly CODE Inc. – provided similar technology and services in the Republic of Fiji.

“The BVR project is the next logical phase on the road to upcoming elections, our selection of a trusted and respected international partner such as ESI will assist us in our challenges to properly register voters,” Permanent Secretary Fred Fakarii of the Ministry of Home Affairs for the country said. “Their knowledge and understanding of delivering under harsh conditions will come in handy as Solomon Islands is composed of just under 1,000 islands and has a land area of 28,400 square kilometers, over a 1,000 km from one end of the country to the other, it is stretched out over more than a million square kilometers of the South Seas,” added the Permanent Secretary.

Article Topics

election  |  facial recognition  |  fingerprint  |  voter registration