YEREVAN. - The test-demonstration of the technical equipment designed for the registration of voters during the upcoming parliamentary elections was held in Yerevan’s Anton Chekhov school on Saturday upon the initiative of the Central Electoral Commission (CEC).
Presenting the process of voter registration, director of E-governance Infrastructure Implementation Unit (Ekeng) CJSC, Artur Tunyan noted: “A citizen approaches the specialist operator and presents the document, which can be either an ordinary passport or an identification card. The first action which the operator should do is to check the identity of the citizen visually. He then downloads the document into the MRZ field. The system provides the data of the citizen, and if it doesn’t recognize these data, a green light turns on, following which it is proposed to download the fingerprint.”
Afterwards, a special invoice is printed, which is provided to the voter. The latter can then continue the process, approaching the registration log with a document and invoice provided to him.
“In case of attempting a double registration, a special voice signal turns on and this fact is recorded. A special invoice is printed but in this case the document and invoice are not returned to the citizen. This is actually the first document for launching proceedings. It is handed to the police for launching proceedings,” Tunyan said.
In his words, voters are not allowed to vote by a passport copy, since it is not considered a document. “Passports or identification cards have an MRZ field. If the same data are noted on an ordinary paper, any device reading that field will always recognize those data. But if a person approaches and asks whether it is possible to register by a copy, the operator says: “No, it is not,”” Tunyan stressed.
Head of the Union of Informed Citizens NGO, Daniel Ioannisyan, for his part, noted that this device aims to rule out the human factor. He asked: “If someone from the thousands of specialists proves to be unconscientious and allows to vote by passport copy, will he manage to do that?”
In response, Chairman of CEC, Tigran Mukuchyan, stressed: “What you are saying is a criminal offense. But today, also considering the wide opportunities of public control in the district centers, such a crime simply cannot happen.”
Tunyan also presented the process of closing the polling stations with the help of the registration devices.
