By John Myers, Staff ReporterTHE ELECTORAL Office of Jamaica (EOJ) testing of its new electronic voting system, to be used selectively in the June 19 Parish Council elections, at the Jamaica College auditorium on Saturday, has been deemed successful.
Information Officer at the EOJ, Neville Graham, told The Gleaner that "the machines have performed well beyond expectations." He pointed out that for those who have turned up "most persons have been identified in under four seconds." Mr. Graham explained that with the normal system, the voting process would facilitate 25 persons per hour on election day, adding that with the electronic system, he believes the process could be drastically reduced to an average of three minutes per 25 persons.
ELECTRONIC SYSTEM
Mr. Graham was, however, cautious in recommending the use of the electronic system in the up-coming Local Government elections slated for June. "We're not saying that yet. The scientist in us will not say that but we are very pleased with what we have seen so far," he said.
At Saturday's exercise, 450 persons from the St. Andrew Eastern constituency participated. Dwight Allison, Technical Specialist in charge of the new system, explained that the voter places a finger on the fingerprint scanner which records and compares the information to a database containing relevant data of the person.
If the information in the database matches with the fingerprint, the vote is approved. However, if the voter is rejected Mr. Allison further explained that the presiding officer would revert to using the back-up system whereby the person is asked certain questions pertinent to his identity. Mr. Graham noted that there were very few such occurrences yesterday. One possible reason for a person being rejected, Mr. Allison pointed out, was that "some people do physically demanding activities in which case their fingerprint quality might be compromised."
UNDESIRABLE LANDSCAPE
With the inclement weather providing an undesirable landscape, Mr. Graham said the turnout was slow but expressed confidence that the voters would turn out. "What we want to do is to have as close as possible (test the system) to a real election... with some degree of rigour to test the abilities of the machine to stand up."
Some of those who turned out to cast their votes expressed complete satisfaction with the electronic system. Although not a registered voter, Member of Parliament (MP) for Eastern St. Andrew, Dr. St. Aubyn Bartlett, expressed confidence in the system. "I think it's good, it's doing well," he asserted. Mr. Bartlett who was on hand to observe the process, explained that he tried to cast a vote as a means of testing the integrity of the system but was rejected by the computer.
"It's much more improved than what I saw the last time, they move at a faster rate," confessed Melaine Johnson, one of the registered voters at the centre.
