The Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Saturday launched a three-day training program for 250 employees of the commission on the use of biometric system for election day. 

The employees will be sent to provincial centers to help other IEC staff members on use the devices. 

“For women polling stations, female employees will be sent there and for men stations male employees. We will not send male employees to women polling centers to take their pictures or record their information in biometric devices,” said the IEC spokesman Sayed Hafizullah Hashemi.

Hashemi said the provincial chiefs of the IEC are  in Kabul to learn more on voters list and use of biometric system.

IEC statistics show that so far 4,400 biometric devices have arrived in Kabul. The remaining will be sent to Kabul by October 10.

Institutions overseeing election process meanwhile said they are not sure that the commission will be able to use biometric system in a short time.

“I am not sure that the commission can use biometric system in such short time. I don’t think that the biometric system will help in elections transparency as people and political parties expect,” said Habibullah Shianwari, member of Election Watch Afghanistan. 

The election commission says it have specified 21,000 polling stations on the election day where people will vote and that they need 21,000 biometric devices – one device for each polling station. 

On the election day, first fingerprints of voters and their pictures will be recorded in the biometric devices and then the photos in the voters’ IDs and the stickers on the IDs will be recorded in the devices prior to voting. 

The biometric issue has been a controversial topic for months after the political parties coalition first raised the issue of large-scale fraud committed during the voter registration process.

After repeated calls to government and the IEC, the commission finally agreed to implement the system and announced the decision last week.

Since then, the coalition has called for details around the then proposed system to be made public.

Last week on Thursday, the IEC unveiled the units – which are made by a German company, Dermalog.

A source told TOLOnews that the total cost of the biometric devices would be about 15 million euros and the company will send 24,000 units and other necessary equipment to Kabul by October 10.