Is the biometric data used in voter identification at polling stations?

ODIHR Election Observation Mission, Republic of North Macedonia, Local Elections, 17 and 31 October 2021, Final Report; accessed 10 July 2023

“Biometric voter identification was introduced to the Electoral Code in February 2020 based on a political agreement aiming to safeguard and modernize the voter identification process. It was implemented for the first time in these elections, in all regular polling stations. Additional amendments in April 2021 clarified the identification procedures, which, together with the appointment of a new SEC and a late procurement and software development process, resulted in a compressed timeframe for implementation and impeded the SEC’s ability to adopt in a timely manner relevant by-laws, procedures, trainings, and voter education. Despite the absence of a pilot project, which could have allowed the SEC to assess the quality of the national fingerprint database and to address potential problems related to the hardware or software, no comprehensive testing or quality assessment of the integrated voter identification system were conducted prior to deploying the devices to all polling stations. In addition, the lack of technical specifications for the infrastructure, most notably the servers, in both the tender and the contract, reduced the transparency of the development and implementation of the system, including with regards to the protection of voters’ personal data. The BVIDs were operated by the EB president or deputy president to verify voters’ identity by matching scanned fingerprints against those contained in the electronic voter lists uploaded onto the devices.”