Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is all set to test electronic voting machines (EVMs) and biometric verification machines (BVMs) in the next by-election. Pakistani firm Secure Tech won the bid for the supply of EVMs and BVMs. An ECP official said that contract requires the delivery of the biometric verification system and 150 devices to be used as pilot project in the next by-election to ascertain their accuracy and efficacy, adding the findings of the pilot project would lead to the strategy to implement the system.
"Once these EVMs and BVMs are delivered by vendors in 10 weeks, they will be used in multiple pilot projects in the upcoming by-election to observe their results," Secretary ECP Babar Yaqoob Fateh Muhammad said this while addressing a contract signing ceremony here.
The ECP in a statement said that the contract was awarded after an extensive evaluation process, which involved presentations /demonstrations of the system to the Parliamentary Committee for Electoral Reforms, its sub-committees, ministries and departments concerned. The letter of award was issued on January 5, 2017 while a formal contract signing ceremony took place at the ECP headquarters. An international tender was floated for inviting bids for EVMs and BVMs last year. Six vendors of EVMs and five of BVMs participated in the bidding process.
The new EVMs would cost around Rs 35 billion for more than 300,000 polling booths in the country. According to the statement, Secure Tech Consultancy will install the hardware security modules (HSMs) and the fingerprint scanners in its production facility and develop and deploy all associated software for the system.
Dermalog Systems (a German firm responsible for the fingerprint scanners and software) and Telepower (a Chinese company responsible for the device manufacturing) are part of the joint venture with Secure Tech. The EVMs are currently in use in 11 countries, including the US, Canada, Australia, France, Austria, India and Estonia.
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