Important Points to Note from the New INEC Guidelines

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has updated its guidelines for elections in Nigeria. Based on what’s below, the decider for elections will hence be different. Though a lot can happen, but it makes the job much easier.

HERE BELOW ARE THE QUICK TAKE-AWAY FROM THE NEW INEC GUIDELINES

1. The Accreditation is going to be purely, wholly, and totally Electronic. (Section 18 and 19)

2. If the BVAS Technology fails to complete the accreditation of a voter, the voter cannot participate in the Election. (Section 20)

3. If there happen to be a wilful obstruction or resistance to the use of the BVAS Device in some of the polling units, such polling units shall be credited with zero votes during collation. (Section 100-ii)

4. What should now be determining the inconclusiveness of elections is no more the total number of registered voters in the affected polling units, but the total number of PVCs that were collected in the affected polling units.

5. If the number of recorded votes is greater than the number of the Accredited Voters (that is, as recorded inside the BVAS Device), then the Elections in such affected Polling-Units is regarded as voided Elections. (Section 40)

6. If the BVAS Device Continues to malfunction, it should be replaced. And if it wouldn’t be replaced within the day of the Election, then the Election in the affected Polling-Unit should be postponed to continue the following day. (Section 23).

7. Even though there is going to be Electronic Collations and Electronic Transmissions (Section 38), there should also be Manual Collations and Manual Transmissions (Section 48) . The Electronically Collated Results would be used to check and verify the manually collated results before they are announced. (Section 51)

Thus, the Electronically Collated Results and the Electronically Transmitted Results from each levels of the electoral process, both voting and collation, as well as all the data that are contained inside the BVAS Device, are all going to be playing very important roles in the final results that are declared by the INEC, from now going forward.