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INEC’s electronic voting gets Senate nod

Published

9 years ago

March 31, 2017

The Senate has adopted the report of the alteration of the existing electoral law, Electoral Act 2010, by the Senate committee on INEC. The upper chamber also moved for the passage of the amendment bill for third reading on Thursady. So electronic voting may start latest by 2019.

The report on the amendment was presented by Abubakar Kyari, APC-Borno, who stood in for the chairman of the INEC committee, Sen Ali Ndume, APC-Borno, justs suspended.

Mr. Kyari, now chairman of the defence committee, is the former chairman of the INEC committee who led most of the work on the amendment process before he was replaced by Mr. Ndume in February.

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It took long deliberation before the report was adopted for third reading.

“We have introduced electronic voting through any technology INEC deems fit,” said Mr. Kyari, speaking after the bill scaled through.

The Senate also legalized the use of smart card reader and “any technological device” for accreditation.

INEC has been using card readers to accredit voters in rerun elections that followed 2015 general polls as part of its guidelines, this is the first time the technology would be given legal backing.

The Senate also moved to give statutory backing to INEC’s newly unveiled electronic result and transmission system. The election management body believes that will end manual collation of results—a process ridden with malpractices.