Bhutan begins biometrics election registration

The Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan has launched biometrics registration for its local elections.Local media reported that election officers have begun registering voters through the biometric finger print scanner and have captured 247 voters' fingerprints to date.Using a thumbprint, the biometric scanner will display voter card details on the computer at the polling station.Electoral registration officer Tshering Sonam Tangbi told the Kuensel newspaper that the biometric scanner is aimed to make election process smoother and faster besides authenticating the voter details.”It's less time consuming,” he said, adding that for instance, if a voter has a twin, they might look similar in the picture but the scanner would detect the details from their fingerprints.He said although the chances of the system not detecting fingerprints on poll day is slim, they have still informed registered voters to carry their VPIC cards on poll day.The election officers would be handling the scanner at each polling station and Tshering Sonam Tangbi urges all voters to register for the biometric.

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