The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has described how polling unit results will be transmitted during Saturday’s governorship elections in all federated states.
Festus Okoye, INEC’s Chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee, stated on Arise TV on Friday that the commission had learned valuable lessons from the presidential and National Assembly elections held on February 25.
“As of today, the law prescribes a dual mode of either transmission or transfer of results,” said Okoye.
He stated that when voting concluded at the unit level, the Presiding Officer who oversaw the unit would enter the scores of the various political parties on form EC8A, which is the unit level result.
He stated, “The PO will sign and stamp this particular result sheet, the PU agent or party agent, if available, will countersign, and copies will be provided to them and the police.
This original result will be scanned and uploaded to INEC’s Result Viewing Portal. In addition, the accreditation data generated by that polling unit will be uploaded, and the physical result and BVAS will be transported to the Registration Area Collation centre.
According to him, the Collation Officer will have access to the original results and the BVAS, as well as the transmitted accreditation data and the polling unit’s result sheet. That is the dual mode that the law prescribes for the commission, and that is the mode that will be utilised for this election.
Speaking on real-time IREV delivery on Saturday, Okoye stated that results from various polling units would be transmitted as soon as the polls closed.
“The commission is committed to enhancing its past performance. “What we’ve done is learn valuable lessons from previous elections we’ve conducted, and we’re going to incorporate those lessons into our planning and deployment processes,” Okoye explained.
Regarding the readiness of the commission, Okoye stated, “As of today, we are holding state assembly and governorship elections.
“In all federation states, Bimodal Voter Accreditation System machines and all sensitive election materials have left the Central Bank and the various state offices.
“We wish to guarantee that all polling places open on time. “Second, we redesigned all of the BVAS that will be used in this election to ensure optimal performance and to prevent a recurrence of some of the difficulties we encountered in prior elections.”
He noted that INEC had also provided refresher training to all types of election-related personnel.
There will be 28 governorship elections and 993 state assembly constituency elections, he said, adding, “It’s a massive election, and INEC will be paying great attention to what’s happening in the various states.”
