KSG Affiliate Revamps Election System

Unisys Corporation, a current partner in the Strategic Computing and Telecommunications in the Public Sector program based at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government (KSG), has recently begun working with the Costa Rican electoral tribunal in implementing the country's new $4.7 million voter registration and personal identification system.

The system includes "biometric" identification cards containing fingerprint and signature images as well as a new electronic electoral register that will be used to maintain accurate census information.

The new system is meant to reduce the fraud associated with manually produced identification cards and thereby maintain the integrity of Costa Rica's elections.

The KSG's program allows representatives from participating companies to interact with each other as well as government officials during workshops and conferences that focus on needs that can be addressed by current technology.

Maurice Shepherd, a Unisys spokesperson, said the company had benefited from its participation in the program.

"We are able to deal with the senior leaders of different countries [and to gain] an understanding of the direction" that technology is taking, Shepherd said.

The KSG program, which was founded in 1987, has a $1.2 million budget that comes entirely from corporate sponsors who donate $100,000 each for the right to participate in workshops and research projects for a three-year period, said Thomas M. Fletcher, the program's associate director.

Other companies participating in the program this year include AT&T, Hewlett-Packard and IBM.