In February 2023, Nigerians will vote again to elect their new leaders. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said it is ready and insists on using the newly introduced Bimodal Voters Accreditation (BVAs).
The BVAs have brought technological changes to the electoral process and transmission of results. February 25, 2023, presidential election will be the first nationwide election where the BVAs will be used after the recent off-cycle governorship election in Ekiti and Osun states.
Electronic transmission of the result
There have been continuous efforts by INEC to change its processes from manual to electronic. The commission’s concept of electronic voting involves four phases; building a robust biometric register of voters, electronic accreditation, electronic balloting, and electronic transmission of results.
The fourth phase, which is the electronic transmission of results, involves sending data from one point to another and using electronic collation of election results to ensure speedy and reliable collation of votes.
Although the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal has been misconstrued as the electronic transmission of results, they are not the same, even though both have some similarities.
IReV entails online publishing scanned copies of the Polling Unit result sheets (Form EC8A), which are usually published at each Polling Unit as Form EC60E. The figures in the uploaded result sheets are not collated for the results announcement. Even the recent elections’ results are accessible to any electorate with an account on the INEC Result viewing portal (IReV).
How are the results transmitted?
In place of the Smart Card Reader (SCR), election officials use the BVAs to authenticate the voter’s identity. The initiative collects the biodata of the voter to assess their eligibility.
Once the voting process ends and the collation begins at each polling unit, the presiding officer counts the valid and invalid votes in the presence of the voters. The scores are recorded in the election result sheet, known as Form EC6OE. The filled form snapped with the BVAs is sent to the collation centre at the local government secretariat for general collation.
The collated result is sent to the state secretariat electronically for general collation and announcement of the final election result.
Misconceptions about the electronic transmission of results
With more solutions proffered by the electoral body come more issues, such as the potential of the initiative to cause confusion for the electorates. DUBAWA picked some misconceptions for clarification.
- No internet voting
Some voters believe that introducing the CVR means they can register and exercise their franchise without going physically to their polling unit. As of press time, the electoral body can only organise how results can be transmitted virtually to the IReV portal for users to access. While pre-registration of voters can start via the CVR portal, voters can not exercise their franchise virtually at the 2023 Presidential election.
- IReV for result viewing, not transmission
The INEC Result viewing portal (IReV) is made exclusively for viewing election results after collation. On the portal, the user will have access to a scanned copy of the polling unit result sheet (Form EC8A). Its replica made available at the polling unit is Form EC6OE. However, these processes are only in affinity to the transmission process.
- Poor network service cannot alter the result transmission
As network provision varies according to location, it is assumed that the quality of service provided in specific communities would determine the ease and timeliness of the transfer of results. The processes involved in the transfer of data, once sent, will be completed.
