THE Senate, on Thursday, March 30, approved the use of electronic voting, e-voting, system, electronic transmission of election results and the deployment of Electronic Card Reader, ECR, as parts of the amendments to the Electoral Act, 2010, it passed by the upper chamber.

With the amendments, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, will, beginning from 2019 general elections, electronically transmit election results to collation centres.

The passage of the bill followed the consideration of the report of the Senate Committee on the INEC on a Bill for an Act to amend the Electoral Act No. 6, 2010 and for other related matters (SB 231 and SB 234).

The bill has provision for the use of e-Voting by the INEC during future elections, use of ECR and the commission would have the power to modify the voting process if there is a challenge.

The Senate also approved a provision to enable the INEC transmit the result of elections electronically in an encrypted and secured manner to prevent hacking.

To avoid the kind of incident that happened in Kogi State, during the last governorship election, the amended Electoral Act provides that if a candidate dies before results of elections are declared, the results will not only remain valid but belong to the political party that lost its candidate.

It also added that in such a case, the INEC should suspend the elections for 21 days to allow the affected political party conduct fresh primaries to choose a new candidate.

The Bill also gives political parties power to adopt direct or indirect primaries in choosing their flag bearers, while qualification or disqualification of candidates for elections will be solely based on the Constitution.

Commenting after the adoption of the report, Bukola Saraki, Senate president, thanked his colleagues for a job well done and expressed optimism that the Bill would further improve the nation’s electoral system and also contribute to good governance.

Saraki said: “We hope that with this Bill that we have passed, very soon, we will sit together with the House of Representatives to be able to get the copy to the President for assent.

“I think when signed into law, it will enable INEC to have something to work early enough. I think what we have done today will really put our electoral law among the best that we have and it will go a long way in improving our electoral process.”

—  Apr 10, 2017 @ 01:00 GMT

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