Kenya
In the wake of Kenya’s 2007 Post election violence, a young inventor decided to combat voter fraud by building his own tamper proof voting Machine.
Twenty three year old Maxwell Collins is yet another bright innovator of a device that could be handy in determining electoral polls in the East African nation.
He says the objective is to have fair and transparent elections.
“In less than 48 hours, we would thus have the results of a presidential election,” explains Maxwell.
The voting machine, a master piece of invention and electric work, is a light sensitive apparatus that integrates the entire voting process into one circuit.
First, the voter’s hand is scanned for ink, to detect whether the person has already voted. If the hand if ink free it gets marked with special ink.
Then, an individualized voter chip and fingerprint test activates the actual voting process.
The way the machine is set up right now, it allows you to vote between two different people or options.
Maxwell also proudly describes how differently abled people can cast their votes using voice recognition alone. Braille voting tabs even allow the blind to cast their votes independently.
Kenya post election violence
Once the voting has been completed, an automatic tallying system adds up the votes and has the ability to send the information to a centralized tallying centre reducing the chances of fraud.
Hellen Adhiambo his mother, confesses that Maxwell is a strange child. “Instead of trying to commercialize his inventions, he seeks to improve its findings,” says Hellen. “He is always eager to learn and will not just do simple things. We hope this will soon be recognized.”
Kenya suffered one of its worst election violence in 2007/2008 that led to the deaths of at least 1,000 people and left another 600,000 more displaced following a dispute in the outcome of the poll.
Mr Bernard Orinda lost his entire family during post election violence in #Kenya #ASP14 https://t.co/zunJx7k7eV
— Godfrey Simiyu (@Simiyuhiphoree) November 20, 2015
Jan. 2008: Ghana President John Kufuor arrives in Kenya to appeal for peace following post election violence in Ken… pic.twitter.com/OF3OEZv52P
— HistoryKe (@HistoryKe) November 8, 2015
Maxwell hopes that his system will one day be used in Kenyan elections.
For now, Maxwell is searching for financial support to help him improve his research.
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