LAGOS—THE Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, was on the hot spot, weekend, as fury raged among opposition political parties after the commission confirmed that it would discard the N40 billion Direct Data Capture, DDC, machines during the forthcoming election.
The Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, in a sharp reaction said the decision to use a manual register was to help the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, rig the election across the country.
The commission is, however, insistent in its course saying that there is no provision of the Electoral Law that compels it to use the DDC machines during the elections.
Spokesman of Major General Muhammadu Buhari, the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, presidential candidate, Mr. Yinka Odumakin, faulted INEC for refusing to adopt the Open Secret Ballot System which he said would have totally eliminated rigging while at the same time saving the country the billions spent on the DDC machines.
Civil rights activist and Executive Director of the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre, PLAC, Mr. Clement Nwankwo, however, defended the commission saying that there was no provision in the Electoral Act compelling INEC to use the electronic machines during voting.
The ACN, yesterday, said it had uncovered a plan by INEC to discard the DDC machines during the forthcoming elections.
The party in the statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, warned that using a manual voter’s register would make it possible for those who had either engaged in multiple registration or purchased voter’s cards to rig the elections.
The party said apart from “ruining the polls, since whoever possesses a voter’s card can vote anywhere and several times, the use of a manual register will also mean that the millions of dollars spent on the electronic voter registration have gone down the drain.”
The INEC spent about N94.3 billion to register 65.2 million voters in the last voters’ registration exercise amounting to $10 dollars or N1446.32 per voter.
Compared with other democracies, spending about $10 to register a voter is high. The cost of similar exercises in Bangladesh, India, and Ghana is less than half of Nigeria’s. The Bangladesh Elections Commission compiled an 80 million voters’ register, using biometric face and fingerprint technology at a total cost of $65 million (N9.75 billion), amounting to a per voter cost of N121.88.
India, with a voting population of 714 million, completed its voters’ registration exercise at $0.56 per voter. With a voter population of 12.8 million, Ghana conducted its 2008 elections at the cost of $40 million, which amounts to $3 per voter.
Nigeria can only take solace in Malaysia, which spent RM2.23 million or $6.68 million to register 161,148 new voters in 1999 at the rate of $41.44 per vote.
However, Malaysia has a better economy and her people are better off than Nigerians in terms of income per capita.
Dangers in using manual register
Explaining how a manual register may be used by INEC, the party said if the electoral body failed to use the same DDC machines used to register voters at the various polling stations where they were used for the registration, it would be impossible to verify the fingerprints of each voter, hence he/she can vote as many times as possible.
Mohammed said: ‘’The voter registration exercise was designed to ensure that only qualified voters would register and vote. The fingerprints captured during registration are stored in the system of each DDC machine, since there is no central data base as we have said in earlier statements.
‘’On election day, the fingerprints of each voter are to be taken again and compared with what has been stored in the computer. If the record is found, the person is considered authentic and should be allowed to vote. Once he/she has voted, the record will be updated to reflect that, and that person should not be allowed to vote again in the same election.
‘’It is, therefore, absolutely important that the computer used during registration, which now contains the records of all voters registered at a particular polling station, must be brought back to the same polling unit on voting day to be used in the verification as indicated above.
If the computer is not brought back and used to verify and authenticate each voter, only the manual register would be used, even though the people will be made to believe the system is foolproof since they will still be fingerprinted anyway.’’
ACN warned that nothing short of the electronic voter’s register, backed by the same system used for the registration exercise to allow the authentication of voters, would be accepted during the April polls.
The party said the need to authenticate would_be voters at the various polling units has been made more urgent by the fact that the so_called AFIS software to detect double/multiple registration has been shown not to be foolproof due to the human factor.
No legal backing for e-voting – INEC
Countering, Mr. Kayode Idowu, Chief Press Secretary to INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, said the electoral commission did not say it would use the DDC machines and assured that what was in the manual register was a replica of what is in the DDC machines.
His words: “INEC never said it will use the DDC machines for election. The law does not allow INEC to use e-voting for now. There is nothing the commission can do about that. However, what is in the manual register is a replica of what we have in the DDC machine.
The fingerprint on the manual register is the same with the finger print in the DDC machine.”
INEC was backed by PLAC’s Mr. Nwankwo, who told Vanguard: “Those machines are not for voting, they are for registration of voters, they are not configured for voting, they are to obtain and store data.”
Buhari’s spokesman, Mr. Odumakin also faulting the INEC plans said “we believe we can overcome all these problems if the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, had done what we asked them to do from the beginning and that is the Modified Open Secret Ballot System.
“This was the same system that was adopted during the June 12, 1993 general elections. With that system, there is no way one person can be in two places at the same time.
Accreditation and voting will be done simultaneously throughout the country and as such no one person can vote twice in the same polling booth. That is what we are pushing for. We also urge all other progressives and Nigerians to push for the same thing.”
The Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, in a sharp reaction said the decision to use a manual register was to help the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, rig the election across the country.
The commission is, however, insistent in its course saying that there is no provision of the Electoral Law that compels it to use the DDC machines during the elections.
Spokesman of Major General Muhammadu Buhari, the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, presidential candidate, Mr. Yinka Odumakin, faulted INEC for refusing to adopt the Open Secret Ballot System which he said would have totally eliminated rigging while at the same time saving the country the billions spent on the DDC machines.
Civil rights activist and Executive Director of the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre, PLAC, Mr. Clement Nwankwo, however, defended the commission saying that there was no provision in the Electoral Act compelling INEC to use the electronic machines during voting.
The ACN, yesterday, said it had uncovered a plan by INEC to discard the DDC machines during the forthcoming elections.
The party in the statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, warned that using a manual voter’s register would make it possible for those who had either engaged in multiple registration or purchased voter’s cards to rig the elections.
The party said apart from “ruining the polls, since whoever possesses a voter’s card can vote anywhere and several times, the use of a manual register will also mean that the millions of dollars spent on the electronic voter registration have gone down the drain.”
The INEC spent about N94.3 billion to register 65.2 million voters in the last voters’ registration exercise amounting to $10 dollars or N1446.32 per voter.
Compared with other democracies, spending about $10 to register a voter is high. The cost of similar exercises in Bangladesh, India, and Ghana is less than half of Nigeria’s. The Bangladesh Elections Commission compiled an 80 million voters’ register, using biometric face and fingerprint technology at a total cost of $65 million (N9.75 billion), amounting to a per voter cost of N121.88.
India, with a voting population of 714 million, completed its voters’ registration exercise at $0.56 per voter. With a voter population of 12.8 million, Ghana conducted its 2008 elections at the cost of $40 million, which amounts to $3 per voter.
Nigeria can only take solace in Malaysia, which spent RM2.23 million or $6.68 million to register 161,148 new voters in 1999 at the rate of $41.44 per vote.
However, Malaysia has a better economy and her people are better off than Nigerians in terms of income per capita.
Dangers in using manual register
Explaining how a manual register may be used by INEC, the party said if the electoral body failed to use the same DDC machines used to register voters at the various polling stations where they were used for the registration, it would be impossible to verify the fingerprints of each voter, hence he/she can vote as many times as possible.
Mohammed said: ‘’The voter registration exercise was designed to ensure that only qualified voters would register and vote. The fingerprints captured during registration are stored in the system of each DDC machine, since there is no central data base as we have said in earlier statements.
‘’On election day, the fingerprints of each voter are to be taken again and compared with what has been stored in the computer. If the record is found, the person is considered authentic and should be allowed to vote. Once he/she has voted, the record will be updated to reflect that, and that person should not be allowed to vote again in the same election.
‘’It is, therefore, absolutely important that the computer used during registration, which now contains the records of all voters registered at a particular polling station, must be brought back to the same polling unit on voting day to be used in the verification as indicated above.
If the computer is not brought back and used to verify and authenticate each voter, only the manual register would be used, even though the people will be made to believe the system is foolproof since they will still be fingerprinted anyway.’’
ACN warned that nothing short of the electronic voter’s register, backed by the same system used for the registration exercise to allow the authentication of voters, would be accepted during the April polls.
The party said the need to authenticate would_be voters at the various polling units has been made more urgent by the fact that the so_called AFIS software to detect double/multiple registration has been shown not to be foolproof due to the human factor.
No legal backing for e-voting – INEC
Countering, Mr. Kayode Idowu, Chief Press Secretary to INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, said the electoral commission did not say it would use the DDC machines and assured that what was in the manual register was a replica of what is in the DDC machines.
His words: “INEC never said it will use the DDC machines for election. The law does not allow INEC to use e-voting for now. There is nothing the commission can do about that. However, what is in the manual register is a replica of what we have in the DDC machine.
The fingerprint on the manual register is the same with the finger print in the DDC machine.”
INEC was backed by PLAC’s Mr. Nwankwo, who told Vanguard: “Those machines are not for voting, they are for registration of voters, they are not configured for voting, they are to obtain and store data.”
Buhari’s spokesman, Mr. Odumakin also faulting the INEC plans said “we believe we can overcome all these problems if the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, had done what we asked them to do from the beginning and that is the Modified Open Secret Ballot System.
“This was the same system that was adopted during the June 12, 1993 general elections. With that system, there is no way one person can be in two places at the same time.
Accreditation and voting will be done simultaneously throughout the country and as such no one person can vote twice in the same polling booth. That is what we are pushing for. We also urge all other progressives and Nigerians to push for the same thing.”
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