General Intentions behind BVR introduction in African Electoral Systems  Cleaning voters’ roll (De-duplication, dead voters)  Efficiency  Improving the quality and integrity voters’ roll  Enfranchising eligible voters  Enhancing trust and credibility of the process The need to deal with voters roll integrity challenges, which affected the credibility of electoral processes resulting in disputed electoral outcomes has driven the growth Africa’s uptake of Biometrics in electoral processes. For instance, the need to ensure the credibility of the voter list as a critical factor in the legitimacy of the 2017 Presidential election motivated Somaliland's 2016 BVR process. Although hailed as a success, the 2016 process followed failed BVR attempts in 2008-2010 after data acquisition and cleaning processes had undermined the resultant roll.9 In Ghana and the Ivory Coast, controversial multi-party elections using voters’ rolls of questionable integrity led to the introduction of BVR by Ivory Coast in 2010 and Ghana in 2012, this to improve identification and voter registration, ease political tensions, and electoral disputes. While these objectives were relatively achieved in Ghana’s 2012 Presidential election, the Ivorian Presidential election of 2010 retained some of the old allegations around the voters’ roll more so the disenfranchising people which contributed to the conflict that ensued after incumbent Laurent Gabgo refused to accept defeat.10 The Gambia also registered a false start with BVR in 2011, eventually dealing with some of the challenges around manipulation of the voters’ roll in the 2016 Election that led to the defeat of the incumbent President Yahyah Jammeh.11 While the majority of African countries that use Biometrics in Voter Registration outsource the provision of BVR kits and associated technologies, Nigeria has achieved a highly credible voters’ roll, which using homegrown compilation hardware and software. Nigeria’s Independent National Election Commission (INEC), which, like Uganda, was an early pioneer on using BVR as early as 2002, was able , to use opensource voter registration software and biometric imaging software developed by Nigeria’s National Institute of Standards and Technology between 2010 and 2011. The result was a credible voters’ roll that has been used successfully in two General elections.12 Electoral experiments with BVR in Africa have yielded mixed results with some good examples showing that biometrics can indeed lead to an accurate voter registry that is ‘foolproof '. In other cases it has been shown that despite the best of intentions, accuracy in Voter Registry continues to be an ideal 9 Schuller, M & Walls, M (2017). Report by International Observers on the 2016 Voter Registration Process in Somaliland. Progressio & UCL Development Planning Unit, London 10 Piccolino, G. (2016). Infrastructural state capacity for democratisation? Voter registration and identification in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana compared. Democratization, 23(3), 498-519. 11 https://findbiometrics.com/gambia-electoral-commission-reports-on-biometric-registration-work-301266/ 12 IDEA (2017). Nigeria Case study in Introducing Biometrics in Elections. Stockholm 10