EC secretary Khairul Shahril Idrus said the project will improve the electoral process and that ballot secrecy will remain fully protected. He said the Optical Character Recognition-Voter Attendance (OCR-VA) System is expected to improve the management of the electoral process and enhance the efficiency of polling clerks. “The OCR-VA System has been developed specifically to record and mark voters’ attendance at polling streams through the automatic scanning of information on their identity cards.” Khairul said the initiative supports efforts to digitalise the electoral process by reducing reliance on manual methods. “The EC assures voters that the OCR-VA system is used solely to record and mark voter attendance and does not involve the voting process or the recording of voters’ choices.