SENATE APPROVE E-VOTING AND OKAY THE USE OF CARD READER

Ahead of the 2019 general elections, the Senate, yesterday, passed amendments to the 2015 Electoral Act empowering the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to use electronic voting for conduct and transmission of results in future elections. The lawmakers also set new guidelines for political parties on the conduct of direct and indirect primaries.
These were part of the recommendations in the report by the Senate Committee on Independent National Electoral Commission on ‘A bill for an Act to amend the Electoral Act No. 6, 2010 and for other related matters (SB 231 and SB 234)’Specifically the Act under section 49 subsection 2 states: “The Presiding officer shall use a smart card reader or any other technological device that may be prescribed by the commission from time to time for the accreditation of voters, to verify, confirm or authenticate the genuineness or otherwise of the voter’s card.”
The Senate also approved a provision to enable INEC transmit the result of elections electronically in an encrypted and secured manner to prevent hacking.A former Chairman of the Senate Committee on INEC, Senator Abubakar Kyari, while addressing journalists after the plenary, said Nigeria’s electoral umpire would be empowered to make electoral process fully electronic if the bill was signed by the President.
He said, “If you remember, the fallout of the 2015 election was the use of the smart card reader. You will also remember court judgments that did not accept the use of the smart card reader as part of the process of accrediting the voter. You will also understand that the smart card is not used in voting but used as a means of accrediting the individual.
“We also had minor lapses with the smart card reader during the 2015 elections. One thing is certain: the smart card readers did not fail to read cards, what they failed to do was to tie the cards with the individuals through their biometrics. The card readers refused, in some instances, to connect the biometric fingerprint to the cards. So, there were many problems with smart card readers.
“What we did, in essence, is to authenticate the use of smart card readers as a means of accrediting a voter in the Electoral Act. That is one of the major landmarks that we have embedded in the Electoral Act.
“Another major amendment is the use of any other electronic devices (for election). The smart card reader, as the name connotes, is specific to reading the smart card. But what we have now done is that we have also allowed INEC to use any other technological devices in the process; not necessarily sticking to the card reader.
“We have expanded the definition of that instrument or any other instrument that will guide INEC in terms of accreditation. We have also given INEC the powers to introduce electronic voting through any technological devices as INEC deems it fit if they think the time is right.”
His assertion is contained in the amended Section 52(2), which states, “The Commission shall adopt electronic voting in all elections or any other method of voting as may be determined by the Commission from time to time.”