Politicians buying voter’s card engaging in futile exercise

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The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared that Politicians buying voter’s cards to use during elections are engaging in an “exercise of futility” as the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) prevents the possibility of such processes.

This was disclosed by the Director-General of The Electoral Institute (TEI), Dr. Sa’ad Idris, at the political parties’ polling agent training workshop and Training of Trainers (TOT) in Abuja.

He revealed that warehoused PVCs can no longer be used during elections as every voter must be authenticated with the BVAS, citing that there are new innovations to the polling system.

“New innovations in the voting system that polling agents need to be aware of include the BVAS which was introduced into our electoral process during the conduct of some elections in 2021.

“The BVAS adds facial technology to the existing fingerprint authentication and this will ensure that all voters are authenticated by either of the technologies.

“With bi-modal authentication, no person can come to vote more than once, as the face or the fingerprints of the person would have been captured during accreditation. This further ensures a one-person-one-vote system.

“It is necessary to emphasise that warehoused PVCs can no longer be used during elections as every voter must be authenticated with the BVAS.

He added that the 2022 Electoral Act has also helped the voter accreditation process, as the law now recognises technology and measures for non-usage.

“The enactment of the 2022 Electoral Act has also helped the voter accreditation process, as the law now recognises technology (Section 47 (2) of the Act), and there are clear punitive measures for the non-usage of accreditation devices on Election Day.

“Also, the total number of accreditations for an election will be sourced from the total number accredited using the commission’s accreditation device – BVAS.

“The BVAS is, therefore, the only means for accreditation of voters on election day.”

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He mentioned that other improvements made by INEC include making available electronic copies of the PU Result Sheet (EC8A) for the general public to view, through the INEC Results Viewing (IReV) Portal, adding:

“This implies that the EC8A form filled and signed by each Presiding Officer (PO) is scanned or photographed and uploaded to a Public Domain which can be viewed by the General Public.

“This system ensures that the EC8A filled at the PU is the same as that brought to the Collation centre, as the RA Collation Officer checks the uploaded EC8A before collating the result.