LUCKNOW The State Election Commission (SEC) on Tuesday successfully trialed a facial registration system (FRS) app designed to eliminate duplicate voting. Slated for a massive statewide rollout during the upcoming panchayat polls, dates for which are yet to be decided, the technology was tested during the nagar panchayat bypolls in Katra (Shahjahanpur district) and Fazilnagar (Kushinagar district).
“We are ready to run the app on all our 2.20 lakh booths for the panchayat polls. After today’s trial, we will work on server speed,” said RP Singh, state election commissioner (panchayat and local bodies), UP. The final voter list for the polls is being prepared by the SEC and is due on June 10.
The app was developed in eight months and put to trial after multiple checks. Training of staff was also done to ensure smooth conduct. The issues that will come during trial will be addressed, he said.
The mobile application, which acts as a digital watchdog at the polling booth, captures an image of both the voters and their ID card, matching the two in real-time.
“The app has been designed to capture the image of the voter card, the voter, match the two and save the data. If a voter tries to vote again. the stored data will raise a red flag, thereby restricting duplicate voting. This is a first of its kind system,” said Singh. While the official estimated processing time is 45 seconds, field trials saw verifications completed in just 20 seconds.
Beyond identity verification, the FRS app acts as a comprehensive polling dashboard. It captures data from the first vote to the last, providing the SEC control room with real-time analytics. Officials can monitor voting percentages, demographic splits like the male-female ratio and overall turnout on a ward-and-booth basis. It even logs data of voters caught attempting to vote twice, as well as those who completed verification, but ultimately chose not to cast their ballot.
Singh explained that the software operates on the presiding officers’ mobile phones and temporarily takes complete control of the device, blocking all incoming calls during polling hours.
Once polling concludes and the ‘end of voting’ option is selected, all captured biometric and demographic data is permanently wiped from the local device and the cloud, migrating securely to the SEC’s central servers. Additionally, the control room monitors the battery levels of the devices in use, allowing support staff to dispatch power banks to booths running low on charge.
The voter data will be linked with state voter number (SVN) generated for all voters.
On instances where voters are twins or their face matrix changes due to accident, the officer said: “In case of twin voters, their names will be different. If some voter’s face has changed due to accident, the app is capable of reading facial matrix with high precision. In case this does not work, the presiding officer has the options to get voter verification done and approve voting,” said Singh.
In case of a controversy, such as a person denied voting by the app due to duplicacy and the voter challenging the decision, the vote will be kept separate in an envelop, and based upon a decision later, the vote will be utilised accordingly, he added.
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