The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been urged to work with the National Assembly to evolve electoral reforms that would ensure credible elections in next general election in 2023.
According to Prof. Olaiya Abideen Olaitan, such reform as electronic voting would not only guarantee credible election but also reduce cost.
On what to do, he suggested thus: “Make a Polling Unit Machine (PUM) like ATM that can accept PVC and it’s not dependent on the Polling Units so you can vote from any machine nearest to you. Not as big as ATM though.”
He said what a voter would do is to “slot in your PVC; accredit yourself by scanning your thumb. The PUM validates the PVC for single vote and then detect the PVC Polling Unit.
“The machine displays the election for that day or possibly all elections on the same day. Machine displays the logo of all registered parties. You tap the logo of the party you intend to vote for.
“You get notified. INEC is notified. The selected party’s vote increases by one and the voter sees it on the machine. A general display of total result as voters continue to vote.
“Once INEC shuts down voting, the machine displays results.”
The professor said with this system, there won’t be need for collation officers, returning officers, armed personnel, election materials (sensitive and non-sensitive), loss of lives, especially corps members and other citizens as well as ballot box snatching and burning.
He said since “every PVC is registered to a Polling Unit, if a Polling Unit Machine is hijacked or burnt, other polling unit machines can be used and any PUM will just detect the PVC and assign the vote to the damaged machine.”
Olaitan said this system would reduce “election overhead cost automatically by more than half and save us money to spend more on voter education.”
He however warned that this will not totally eliminate vote rigging, “but it will drastically reduce the opportunities for sabotaging our elections by riggers.”