The Central Election Commission conducted today the operational testing of the Devices for Electronic Identification of Voters (PEI),   which will be used for May 14, 2023 local government elections. 

For the voters identification, the Electronic System of Voters Identification will be implemented and Electronic Identification Devices will be used,  placed in 5211 voting centers, which will ensure the correct biometric identification of voters, based on the electronic register stored in the device.

The deputy Commissioner, Mrs. Lealba Pelinku stated that in the elections held in the last two years, the process of electronic identification was carried out successfully and this is the third year it is applied, and it is expected to be a success even in the third year.

3 per cent of the equipment were randomly selected to test the functionality of electronic identification devices. Pelinku explained that the operational tests checks these elements: whether a voter belongs to that specific voting center, whether a voter attempts to vote multiple times, or whether that voter is in the wrong voting center as well as the special cases related to commissioners or voters who present themselves with a court decision. 

The State Election Commissioner, Mr. Ilirjan Celibashi highlighted the improvement of the protocol system of cases,  when for objective reasons, the electronic voters identification is not possible. The CEC had built a system which leaves no room to anyone, who, might want, in a manipulative way, try to circumvent the electronic identification. ” PEI operators are trained through an improved training methodology. For this reason,  I believe the voters identification process will be more successful than the previous years, with a more significant tracks to evaluate the progress of the process. The novelty of this system is the periodic sharing of data on voters’ turnout during election day. For the first time, we shall have real time data on the number of voters that voted in each voting center on May 14,2023″.

On the election day, the voter will be present in the voting center with the ID or biometric passport, in order to be identified via PEI device. In addition to identification, he will also leave dactyloscopic traces ( finger prints) which will serve to identify the cases of illegal voting.