Brazil to fully use biometric identification in elections by 2018

The elections in Brazil, which are automated, will be fully carried out through biometric identification by 2018, the president of the Superior Electoral Court, Ricardo Lewandowski, said Monday.

A pilot program of the biometric identification technology was carried out in Sunday's presidential election, with the participation of over 1.2 million voters in 60 municipalities of 23 states.

By 2018, Brazil will have 155 million eligible voters from the 135 million at present.

Lewandowski said Brazil's automated voting system is the most complete one in the world, stressing that the technology in the voting machines was entirely Brazilian. It eliminates the possibility of fraud, he added.

The system also speeds up vote count this year, and five hours after the ballot booths were closed, most election results were already known.

In Brazil, the voting machine system was first used in the municipal elections of 1996. By the time when a general election was held in 1998, the system had already been implemented in most of the country.

Source: Xinhua