Voters in the Sultanate of Oman cast their ballots electronically on Sunday, electing their representatives in the lower area of the Omani parliament, a biometric virtual identity platform developed by Tech5 and its partner uqudo.
A total of 753,690 voters chose from 843 candidates for the Consultative Council, known as Shura, an electronic voting formula through the Antakhib mobile app. For the first time, voters living outside the Sultanate of Oman were allowed to participate in remote elections. elections, in which more than 13,800 Omanis voted.
The Antakhib app has been well received, with 91% of the new electorate registering through the app and 9% through the election website, according to Oman’s Ministry of Interior.
“The Antikhab app also provides numerical statistics showing the percentage of votes in wilayat and other electronic services,” ministry spokeswoman Sumaiya Albalushi told Tanzania’s Standard Daily News.
Voters can use the e-voting formula by simply scanning their biometric ID card on their smartphone and allowing the app to read the NFC chip provided in the ID. The entire procedure lasted less than a minute while voters’ potential choices were not tied to their identity. Tech5 said in a statement.
The entire electoral procedure took less than a week compared to the previous three or four months, and voters did not want to go to the polling station. The biometrics-based virtual identity platform also eliminated the dangers of voter fraud, the company claimed. .
“Oman’s virtual elections are a historic moment for the country and thanks to the collaborative efforts of uqudo and Tech5, we are confident that the entire electoral procedure is fair and accurate, in line with Oman’s vision of further virtual acceleration. “says Mohamed Fagiri, founder and CEO of uqudo.
Switzerland’s Tech5 and Britain’s uqudo were the first to expand the voter identity verification formula for Oman’s municipal elections in 2022. In February of this year, the companies began a collaboration to create new systems tailored to the Middle East and Africa, when Tech5 invested in uqudo.
Antikhab | Biometrics | Digital Identity | Elections | NFC | Oman | Remote Verification | TECNO5
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