The National Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu has confirmed that the commission will not deploy the use of electronic gadgets to conduct voting during the 2019 general elections. Yakubu, who is also the President of the ECOWAS Network of Electoral Commissions (ECONEC) said this while briefing reporters at the end of the three-day International Conference on “ Opportunities and Challenges in the use of technology in Elections”, which ended in Abuja on Wednesday. The conference organized by the INEC, the European Centre for Electoral Support (ECES), the Electoral Commissions Forum of Southern Africa Development Countries (ECF/SADC) drew participants from over 30 countries from West and southern African sub-regions, who brainstormed on the deployment of technology for elections.
Yakubu noted that within the existing legal framework in Nigeria, the commission has enough backing for the deployment of technology saying “I want to categorically say that the commission is not deploying electronic voting in 2019 but we will deploy technology for the collation and transmission of electronic results and we believe that by doing so we will collate, transmit and declare results more speedily and more accurately.”
He added that the commission will involve the citizens through what we call “Citizens Mandate Protection” in addition to forms that will be issued to political parties and their agents at polling stations.
Full Article: No electronic voting in 2019- INEC chair – BusinessDay : News you can trust : BusinessDay : News you can trust.
