We Reject “Manual Collation” Of Results
THOUGH the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, swiftly issued a statement last Sunday affirming that “electronic transmission of results has come to stay”, the confusion as to the continued role of “manual collation” of results in our electoral management under the recently amended Electoral Act remains.
Festus Okoye, INEC’s Chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee, in an interview with a national daily, reportedly said though results in future elections will be electronically transmitted, the collation of results will still be basically “manual”.
Though Okoye alleges that his comment was “misinterpreted”, we question what role that “manual collation” still plays in our elections now that we can transmit results from the polling units to the Commission’s national server, which can be viewed live on its INEC Result Viewing, IreV, portal? In pushing fervently for the passage and assent into law of the Electoral Amendment Act, INEC had argued that it would minimise human interference in our elections. These interferences corrupted our elections and allowed hooligan politicians to impose themselves on the people.
The electronic accreditation of voters through INEC’s Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, and results transmission from the polling units made the off-cycle Anambra, Ekiti and Osun states elections generally acceptable.
We say “no” to any form of manual collation that could supplant results transmitted from the polling units. There is adequate network coverage all over the country such that even the terrorists freely communicate from the bushes.
