As part of the efforts aimed at protecting the votes of the electorate in Nigeria, as well as the mandate of political candidates, the Nigerian Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announced that it has set up a dedicated public portal, known as “The INEC Result Viewing (IReV),” where Nigerians can view election results, live, from polling units.
The commission announced this in a statement on Thursday, issued by Mr Festus Okoye, National Commissioner, and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, after its meeting held in Abuja. Okoye said that at the meeting, the commission approved the introduction of a new step to further strengthen its election management process and enhance the transparency of the system. Okoye went on to note that the use of the portal will start with the Nasarawa Central Constituency election set to hold on August 8, 2020, after which it will also be deployed in Edo and Ondo governorship polls.
The Commission’s spokesperson, however, explained that the viewing portal will not constitute electronic collation of results, saying: “The collation of election results shall remain as provided for by law, a manual process of completion of relevant result sheets and their upwards collation until the final results are determined.
Prior to this development, INEC had started work towards the introduction of electronic voting into the Nigerian elections process. A bill that aimed at achieving this was, however, a victim of an ego battle between the Presidency and the National Assembly in 2018. In a related development, a bill to ensure that INEC adopts electronic voting as a method for future elections on Wednesday, November 20, 2019, scaled second reading.
If passed, the bill will compel INEC to operate an electronic database into which all results in an election should be transmitted “A Bill for an Act to Amend the Electoral Act No.6 2010 and for Other Related Matters, 2019 (SB.122).”
This story is part of our new series on Nigeria where we analyse electoral reform in the country ahead of the next general elections in 2023.
