2019 Election: How Votes Will Be Collated – INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said that it would only do a nationwide pilot electronic transmission (e-collation) of results in the forthcoming general elections.

INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, disclosed this in his opening remarks at the Commission’s regular quarterly meeting with the media on Tuesday in Abuja.

He said that for the Commission to do full electronic transmission of results, there must be a backing law for that.

“The Commission is also aware of the interest expressed by the media to learn more about the commission’s electronic results transmission process, including its backend processes.

“This meeting will include a presentation on the pilot we carried out in some of the off-season elections conducted by the Commission,” he said.

Yakubu urged media organizations to sensitize registered voters yet to collect their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) to do so, in order for them to be able to participate in the forthcoming general elections.

He re-emphasized that the commission would not create additional polling units for 2019 elections, other than units created for the 2015 general elections.

“No new polling unit has been created and none will be created before the 2019 general elections,” he said.

The INEC chairman appealed to the media to partner with INEC in tackling the worrisome issue of vote buying which the commission had been working to address.

“We appeal to the media to continue to partner with the Commission by making information available to us while we work with the security agencies to deal with the violators of our electoral laws.

“These include those who may be trying to compromise our staff responsible for making the PVCs available for collection by legitimate voters.

“We understand that some actors have been going round hunting for our staff responsible for the distribution of PVCs. We are aware of this and we are ahead of them, “ he said.

Answering questions on plans to introduce the rolling and flattening of ballot papers by voters as part of measures to address vote buying, Yakubu said that plans were in place to ensure that it did not lead to increased voided votes.

“The first one is the quality of the ink. You know you have quick dry ink and the certain type of ink that immediately you thumbprint it spreads.

“We are committed to ensuring that we get the right type of quality,’’ he said.

He said that the initial folding would be done by the electoral officer, and folding it from the top (the ballot paper), it could not spread on the columns for political party on the paper.

He added that as the elections approaches, the commission was working to finalise its guidelines for the 2019 general elections.

The chairman also said that the Commission was committed to effective training of its ad hoc staff for the success of the elections.

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