The voting machines have been installed at all polling stations and voting trials conducted to check that they are functioning properly.
The voting process has the following steps: A voter has to insert his/her national ID card in the smart ID card reader and then press ‘Continue’ button. Photos of the candidates will then appear in the monitor.
If a voter opts to vote by a candidate’s number, then the he/she has to enter the number and press ‘Add’ button.
If a voter wants to go by a candidate’s photo, he/she can search photographs of the candidates on the screen and then click on the photo of the chosen candidate.
The voter can search the photos of other candidates on other pages by pressing ‘Next’ or ‘Previous’ page.
When a voter selects the candidates’ photos which appear in the yellow box on the right of the screen, he/she can press ‘Continue’ button.
A confirmation screen will then appear. The voter should check out the candidates’ selection and then click the ‘Vote’ button . If a voter wants to change his/her choice of one of the candidates, or wants to add a new candidate, they can do so by pressing the “ Modify Voting’ option.
After completing the previous steps and okayed the candidates list, a new window will appear which indicates that the ballot paper is being printed. If the ballot paper has been printed already, the voter can press ‘Print Completed’ or if not, he/she can press ‘Not Yet Printed’ and ask those in charge at the polling station for help.
Voters can collect their ID cards from the smart ID card reader and take the ballot paper from the printer and cast it in the ballot box after folding it.
“It has been taken into account that the steps of the e-voting process should be simple and can be used by all categories of people, and that the process should not take more than a few minutes,” said Tariq Hilal Lootah, Undersecretary of the Ministry of State for FNC Affairs, member of the National election Committee and Chief of the Election Management Committee.
Voters will be given the necessary training before the actual voting process so as to make voting an easy operation, he added.
Lootah pointed out that for voters with special needs who can neither read nor write, Article No. 33 of the executive regulations of the FNC elections 2011 entitles them to ask the officials at the polling centre for assistance and then a member of the polling station committee will help them cast their votes in the right way.
The Election Management Committee has called upon voters to bring with them their ID cards to the polling stations as no other identification document is allowed in this year’s elections.
