EMBs may issue identity documents or proof of registration documents to registered voters. Technology can be used to automate this process.
Voter register databases can be used to generate the data to be printed on an electoral identity document. Where photographs, signatures or finger/thumb prints have been digitised and stored in a database, they can also be printed on identity documents generated by the voter register database.
Identity documents containing photographs, signatures or finger/thumb prints can also be generated using specialised systems designed to produce identity cards while the subject is present. In these cases, textual information is printed on hardcopy (using data either provided on the spot or data extracted from a database). The voter usually signs this hardcopy record, and/or makes a fingerprint or thumbprint. The operator places the hardcopy printout including the signature and/or finger/thumb print in the device, and takes a photograph of the person. The device then prints an identity card including a copy of the printed data, the signature and/or finger/thumb print, and the photograph. The card is usually laminated, and can include tamper-evident security devices such as holograms or embedded print to make it difficult to forge or alter the card.
Identity cards can also be produced that do more than simply show images of text and pictures. 'Smart cards' incorporating magnetic strips or data chips can also store electronic data about the person who is the subject of the card. This data can include bio-identification data, so that smart cards can be used with smart card readers and bio-identification readers (such as finger print scanners) to automatically verify a person's identity.
Smart cards can be 'read only' cards that simply contain information about the subject. Other types of smart cards can be 'read-write' cards which can have the information contained on the card updated as the cards are used. For example, a read-write card used to verify a person's right to vote could, once used, be recorded as having been used for that election, so that it could not be used for voting in that election again.
Where smart cards are used in polling places, they could be used to replace current methods of recording that a person has voted. Where a voter uses a smart card at a polling place to verify his or her right to vote, the smart card reader could at the same time record that that person had voted and transmit that data to a central database during or after polling.
The provision of smart cards to voters and smart card readers to polling places would be an expensive exercise, so that EMBs would need to judge whether the advantages that could be gained would be worth the expense.
Smart cards incorporating an electronic identity could also be used for voter registration or voting by computer over the internet or at a computer kiosk, provided the computer was equipped with a smart card reader.
