Chowrangi

Here is another bright Pakistani mind, presenting an idea which could have won him millions in some other part of the world.

Muhammad Asif Nawaz has come up with a Satellite Voting System that can not only allow expats to vote, in real time, but also greatly help in elimination of rigging and engineering issues in the elections.

Technical Specifications: The main component of this satellite voting system is a Programmable Satellite Voting Device (PSVD), comprising of a 2.66-GHz Intel Core i7-620M CPU, 16GB RAM, 1TB Hard Disk running on OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) along with Thumb Impression Reader and TDMA connection.

How it works:

1. Voter will apply his/her thumb on Impression Reader
2. Thumb impression will be matched with NADRA database for validity for the vote.
3. Once thumb impression is authenticated it will be matched with election commission database to check if voter has cast a vote or not.
4. New voter will be taken to cast the vote.
5. Voter will be asked to select electoral sign / symbol of the political party.
6. Vote casting will complete once voter selects the party symbol, confirms the selection, and exits the system.

The voting devices will be directly synchronized with centralized database of Election Commission of Pakistan or NADRA.

The devices will have continuous connectivity with internet through satellite so that they can work anywhere on globe.

As soon as voter cast his/her vote, his voting entry will be locked in main database and he won’t be able to cast his vote again through any voting device.

Advantages of Satellite Voting System:

• Fake voting is impossible
• It can work on any place on globe
• It is quite economical and affordable
• No need to make voter lists
• Voter does not need to keep the NIC along even for voting
• No need to adopt different systems for foreign based Voters
• No need to spend resources for security, vote counting, voting lists preparation, voter verification and many other aspects
• Easy and user friendly
• Portability
• Multi Lingual
• Split able voting process (No need to conduct election in one day)

Distribution of votes: Votes will be considered for the candidate of related area/region as address mentioned on NIC of a voter.

Approximate Cost of each device: US$ 3500 -5000

This is indeed a idea worth investigation. Hopefully some common sense will prevail with the government.

More details at Asif Nawaz’s blog.

Related:Election, Election Commission, NADRA, Pakistan, Satellite Voting, Voting