EC to introduce automatic registration of voters in Ampangan state polls

 EC secretary Khairul Shahril Idrus says this is a pilot scheme to enhance the efficiency of polling clerks.

EC secretary Khairul Shahril Idrus said the project will improve the electoral process and that ballot secrecy will remain fully protected. (Bernama pic)

PETALING JAYA:

The Election Commission (EC) is to implement a new system that automatically records the attendance of voters as part of a pilot project during the Negeri Sembilan election on Saturday.

EC secretary Khairul Shahril Idrus said the system will be deployed at Sekolah Menengah Agama Dato’ Klana Petra Maamor and will involve polling streams 1 to 7 in the Ampangan state constituency, Bernama reported.

He said the Optical Character Recognition-Voter Attendance (OCR-VA) System is expected to improve the management of the electoral process and enhance the efficiency of polling clerks.

“The OCR-VA System has been developed specifically to record and mark voters’ attendance at polling streams through the automatic scanning of information on their identity cards.”

Khairul said the initiative supports efforts to digitalise the electoral process by reducing reliance on manual methods.

“The EC assures voters that the OCR-VA system is used solely to record and mark voter attendance and does not involve the voting process or the recording of voters’ choices.

“Therefore, the secrecy of the ballot remains fully protected.”

Khairul said the outcome of the pilot project would be evaluated to assess its effectiveness for future use. - FMT