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Against the background of civil unrest resulting from its 2007 elections, Kenya has completed the piloting of a biometric verification system in readiness for its 2012 general elections, with nearly 1.5 million voters all across Kenya taking part in the pilot programme. Voters who participated in the pilot programme used their new biometric IDs for the first time to vote in an August 4, 2010 referendum. Registered voters went to one of Kenya's 2,000 local polling stations and presented proof of their eligibility to vote. For those with the new IDs, the right hand thumbprint was then used to �check in� each voter and strike him or her from the list of eligible voters, ensuring that each individual was only able to vote once. The verification device employed in Kenya consists of a battery operated electronic machine that checks your face and finger prints against your photograph and finger prints that were taken (captured) during the registration exercise. The Kenyan government has been pleased with the results of the pilot programme so far and the August 2010 voting process was widely hailed as a success. The polling was efficient and produced accurate, credible results. In so doing, the new system has helped to reinforce confidence in the election process. Future plans call for rolling out the system across the remaining voting constituencies, and the programme is expected to be completed before the 2012 elections. When complete, approximately 13 million Kenyan voters will be registered in the new system. Civil unrest in the aftermath of Kenya's 2007 elections prompted the government of Kenya to completely overhaul its system of managing elections. The IIEC was formed to replace the previous Electoral Commission of Kenya and charged with the mission to institutionalize sustainable electoral processes that would guarantee fair elections. The IIEC worked with system integrator CODE to implement a multi-biometric voter registration system based on secure and reliable fingerprint, facial and multi-biometric technologies from Neurotechnology. To undertake such a large and important mandate, the IIEC required a voter registration system that would ensure highly accurate identification of Kenya's 13 million voters and a reliable process for flagging any duplicate registrations in the system. They turned to system integrator CODE who developed and implemented a multi-biometric fingerprint and facial identification voter registration system based on Neurotechnology's MegaMatcher biometric technology. MegaMatcher�s fingerprint and facial technology is used for biometric enrollment and verification in the field and then the powerful MegaMatcher multi-biometric fingerprint and face identification engine is used for matching and flagging of duplicate registrations in the national voter database. CODE worked closely with Kenyan authorities to implement the solution, providing tools and support to train and help electoral workers gather information and biometric data to register voters, issue ID cards and compile and process data to generate an accurate, updated registry of voters. For each voter registered, one facial image and two fingerprints (thumbprints) are enrolled in the system using the MegaMatcher fingerprint and facial algorithms to verify the image quality and process the biometric data. The voter provides basic biographical information that is then linked with his or her digital face and fingerprint images to provide a unique multi-biometric record for each voter. The voter is issued an ID card that he or she must present in order to vote in upcoming elections. The entire process, from application to registration of the biometric data to issuance of the voter ID card takes approximately four minutes. Once the biometric data is registered in the field, it is saved onto an encrypted USB thumb drive for transport back to the national data center for processing. There the data goes to the Adjudication Module, which uses MegaMatcher technology to rapidly search the database for any duplicate registrations, comparing and cross-referencing facial and fingerprint data with all existing records in the system. If any discrepancies or duplications are found, they are examined on-screen by a trained IIEC operator and a ruling is made. Changes are recorded in the database and the duplicate cards are cancelled. Once all discrepancies have been resolved, the IIEC updates and prepares a clean, accurate voter registry that meets Kenya's stringent new legal and administrative requirements for management of elections.