Brazil. About 10 million Brazilian voters will vote in the 2014 general elections using a biometric system of identification through digital printouts, the country's Electoral Justice body reported.
Among the voters who will vote under the new system are those from the cities of Brasilia (DF), Boa Vista (Roraima), Rio Branco (Acre), Macapá (Amapá), Palmas (Tocantins), Teresina (Piauí), Sao Luis (Maranhao), Joao Pessoa (Paraíba) and Recife (Pernambuco).
Considered a more secure technology, biometrics allows voters to be identified by their digital impressions, making identification fraud virtually impossible.
The first experience of biometric voting in Brazil occurred in the 2008 municipal elections, when some 40,000 voters used the system. The second was in last year's municipal elections, when 7.7 million voters used the technology.
The expectation of the Electoral Justice is that the biometric system will be installed in all Brazilian municipalities by 2018.
Brazil is one of the pioneer countries in the use of electronic means for the conduct of elections, after it used electronic ballot boxes in 1996 and generalized its use in the 2002 elections.
