Cameroon election agency secures funding to replace aging biometric voter registration kits

The body managing elections in Cameroon (ELECAM) says it has obtained funds from the government and discussions are already ongoing with technical and technological partners for the overhaul of biometric kits deployed across the country for voter registration.

The Director General of the elections management body, Dr Erik Essousse, gave the information during a recent press conference to inform the public about the state of voter registration in the country.

Cameroon has four elections in 2025, the last full-cycle voter registration exercise is ongoing, and it is expected to run till August 31.

Essousse said as part of the plan to renew the equipment used for voter registration, ELECAM is in the process of acquiring new kits. This, he said, will facilitate the process of voter registration, as many of the machines currently in use have aged and are slowing down the process.

“The government has already given us the resources so that we can renew our equipment. We are already working with our technical teams and partners in order to choose registration kits that will best respond to our needs and the needs of the public,” the Chief Electoral Officer of ELECAM said.

Essousse neither mentioned how much money has been made available for the project nor how many biometrics kits they intend to purchase.

ELECAM currently has around 1,200 biometric voter registration kits supplied by German firm Giesecke and Devrient back in 2012. The election agency is said to have also deployed kits supplied by biometric and identity providers GenKey and Veridos.

During the press conference, Essousse praised the steam which the voter registration process has progressively gained since the process started off in January. He said in the past four months, more than 200,000 new voters have been enrolled, thanks largely to the multi-stakeholder approach to sensitisation efforts.

“There has been growing interest in voter registration since the start of this year. We have now registered more than 200,000 new voters in four months. We are working in a professional manner and we want to make sure that all Cameroonians who have attained legal voting age are enrolled on the electoral register under the conditions provided for by the legislation in force and also during the days of the week allowed by the law,” Essousse told reporters.

With the impressive turn of events regarding voter registration, Essousse says he’s optimistic ELECAM will go beyond the 7.5 million names they had projected to have in the electoral register by the time the 2024 voter registration window closes on August 31.

Article Topics

Africa  |  biometric identification  |  biometrics  |  Cameroon  |  digital identity  |  voter registration