How elections will be transmitted, by INEC

Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Prof. Mahmood Yakubu has said raw election figures will not be transmitted electronically during Saturday’s Presidential and National Assembly elections.

Yakubu said Presiding Officers will be required to use the BVAS machine to snap the election results on the results sheet from each polling unit and upload them on INEC Result Viewing Portal for Nigerians to see.

Speaking at a meeting with leaders of International Election Observers at the Commission’s head office, the INEC boss said the decision not to transmit raw figures electronically was taken to avoid hacking as raw figures are more susceptible to hacking.

He also told the international observers the decision not to transmit the raw figures is the main difference between the Kenyan experience and what the commission is doing.

He also assured the elections were going to hold as planned because the Commission has mobilised all critical government institutions to ensure the success of the exercise.

He said that the Bimodal Voter Identification System (BVAS) which has been deployed for the elections is expected to perform three main functions.

According to him: “It confirms that the cards issued by the commission and presented by the voter is genuine and the voter is authenticated using the fingerprint and where it failed, the facial. Where both fail, the voter can’t vote. That is a matter of law.

“After the process is completed at the polling unit, the image of the polling unit result will be taken by the BVAS and uploaded into what we call the INEC Result Viewing Portal where citizens can see polling unit level results as tye processes are completed at polling unit level.

“The difference between what Kenya did in 2015 and what we are doing is that we are not transmitting raw figures for collation. In fact, the law does not allow for electronic collation of results. So, we don’t transmit raw figures because raw figures transmitted online are more susceptible to hacking while images of a document are not susceptible to hacking.”

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