SEOUL, KOREA – “Smart” elections that will replace paper-based electoral rolls with IT devices are in the works. National Election Commission of Korea (NEC) is pressing ahead with the introduction of electronic signature pads as part of its efforts to put in place a consolidated electoral roll system within this year. It was confirmed that the NEC already had embarked on this project, contracting out the production of prototypes to solution companies.
On January 30, the NEC announced that it would move towards the introduction of electronic signature pads to implement the consolidated electoral roll system starting from the upcoming elections slated for April and October of this year. The electronic signature solution industry is busy developing pads, which come with either an electromagnetic stylus or a pen plus a fingerprint reader, to supply their products to the NEC. The electronic signature solution industry expected that once the consolidated electoral roll system is set up in approximately 13,000 polling stations nationwide, there will be a surge in demand for electronic signature pads. Yet, it is likely to take some time to equip all of the polling stations with electronic signature pads since budgets for building the consolidated electoral roll system have yet to be prepared and amendments to the Public Official Election Act should be made first.
Source: http://english.etnews.com/index.html
