THE Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ) yesterday confirmed that it will be using voter identification machines in seven battleground constituencies in today’s general election.

The Electronic Voter Identification and Ballot Issuing System (EVIBIS) was introduced by the EOJ/Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ) in 2007 to identify and verify voters at polling stations by using their fingerprint, after which the system will issue authenticated ballots for voting.

The main objectives of the EVIBIS are to prevent impersonation of an elector, multiple voting by persons, and the use of unauthenticated ballots.

Former prime minister and leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Edward Seaga had suggested at the party’s rally at Half-Way-Tree on Sunday that the EOJ only had seven EVIBIS machines. But Director of Elections Orrette Fisher told the Jamaica Observer yesterday that the EOJ will be using approximately 748 of these machines to cover all polling stations in the seven constituencies which have been selected for this level of polling security.

The constituencies include St Andrew West Central, which is represented by Opposition Leader Andrew Holness, and which has been targeted by the ruling People’s National Party (PNP), which has provided increased resources for its candidate, Patrick Roberts, in a bid to grab the seat. Holness has held the seat since 1997.

However, Holness’s wife, Juliet, who has repeatedly suggested the use of the system in the very competitive St Andrew East Rural, is not so lucky as it is not among the six other seats in which the EVIBIS will be administered.

The other six are Kingston Central; Kingston Eastern and Port Royal; St Andrew Western; St Andrew South Eastern; St Andrew Eastern, and the only rural constituency in this group, St Catherine Eastern.

Fisher said that the constituencies were selected on the basis of their history of election day activities as well as, in some cases, the closeness of the results. Some 1,500 election day workers will be manning the machines.

Fisher, who has the final say on where the machines should be located, said yesterday that there are other considerations which led to these seven being chosen. He explained that the reason for St Andrew East Rural being left out was because of problems with the hilly terrain.

However, in addition to the machines, the EOJ has employed a large number of specialist election day workers, who are far removed from the constituencies in which they will be working today. These workers were last night housed at a number of venues, including the Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston, from where they will be transported to the various polling stations which have a history of election day problems.

Sixteeen constituencies will benefit from the presence of these selected workers, who will not be from the areas they are working in, but only 12 of these constituencies will have full coverage, while four others, including St Andrew East Rural, will benefit from having these EOJ workers in selected polling stations.