The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said that it will upload election results from the 5,634 polling units to its result-viewing portal as voting commences in today’s governorship election in Anambra State.
The electoral body however said collation of results would be done manually as obtained in previous elections and not with the uploaded results.
The commission expressed confidence that the technological approach, designed to enhance transparency in the election management process, would boost people’s confidence in elections and enable Nigerians to view polling unit results in real-time as voting ends.
The electronic transmission of results which was introduced in August 2020, was first used by the electoral body on August 8, during the 2020 Nasarawa Central State Constituency bye-election and was later deployed in the Edo and Ondo states governorship elections held on September 19 and October 10, 2020, respectively.
According to Punch, INEC National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, had said the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System newly introduced by the commission would more or less replace the card readers going forward and would be used for voter registration, accreditation and uploading polling unit results to the result-viewing portal.
The Bimodal Voter Accreditation System is a three-in-one process that allows the use of one machine for the purposes of voter registration, accreditation (fingerprint and facial authentication) and uploading of polling unit results to the result-viewing portal.
Okoye said, “The commission will upload polling unit level results to our INEC result-viewing portal. We are confident that our new technological approach to elections will continue to yield results. We have trained all the ad hoc staff that would use the BVAS and the implication is that we have more or less retired the smart card reader as equipment for voter accreditation.”
Okoye said that the BVAS were dispatched to the local government areas since Thursday, adding that if any challenges arose, whether in the voting or logistics, the commission had the capacity to deal with them.
Meanwhile, as voting commenced at various polling units across the state, 18 political parties with their candidates are on the ballot and jostling for the over 2.5 million available votes to replace the outgoing Governor of Anambra State, Willie Obiano, in the election.
Thisday reported that there is a massive turnout of voters in all the polling units visited within the central senatorial district in the state. This is despite the various concerns raised over the high level of insecurity in the state recently, which was expected to cause voter apathy during the ongoing election.
This might have been as a result of the massive deployment of security officers across the state by the federal government and the recent withdrawal of the initial threat by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) not to allow election to take place.
