The Independent National Electoral Commission has canvassed that the use of technology in the conduct of elections has come to stay around the world and therefore should be improved upon.
Prof Mahmood Yakubu who stated this Thursday in Abuja while presenting a paper at the Blueprint’s 10th anniversary and impact series/award noted that the challenges with IT deployment could be overwhelming, especially for avast country like Nigeria. Speaking through the Director of ICT in the commission, Chidi Nwafor, the INEC chairman stressed that technology is evolving, and should therefore move with the trend to get the benefits therein.
According to Yakubu, technology and processes is a major taskin a technologically driven electoral process.
He added that that “it is very important to always realise that technology may most times notgive a full end-to-end solution, the people aspect need to be well handled.
“The use of technology in elections has come to stay, especially in this part of the world, and therefore needs to be improved upon.”
On the way forward on the use of technology in the conduct of elections, the INEC boss said, “deployment of technology has touched most of the election processes”, adding that INEC is working on the last part – deployment of Electoral Voting Machines (EVMs).
He stated that “INEC is institutionalising the technologiesthrough more research, developments and study tours, adequate training and staff development, calling for more support (funding) from government and international partners.
He further said that law should be made to support technology, rather than be a barrier while calling for public enlightenment and more stakeholder engagements because having a free, fair and credible election – which is devoid of rigging, is a collective duty of all Nigerians.
The stakeholders according to the chairman are the voters, political parties and politicians, civil society organisations, the media, security agencies, INEC and its staff, amongst others.
The INEC boss also highlighted areas technology cannot be applied, especially those that are beyond the reach of the commission to include “political party primaries and selection of candidates, disruptions to normal voting and results collation processes, security of men and materials as well as vote “buying” and “selling”.
On overcoming the challenges of technology and data security, INEC chairman said the commission “is keen at ensuring the security of its data, networks and other infrastructure.
He noted that “several attempts have been made on INEC’s sites, portals, etc; and more will be made, especially as INEC deploys more of its infrastructure online to serve the people better.
He also called for more enforcement of the 2015 cyber crimes (Prohibition, Prevention, etc) Act.
He said the commission has applied technology so far in the “core processes in the electoral system which includesregistration of voters, authentication of voters on election day, casting of ballots and collation of election results.
Others are declaration of winners, voter registration, voter authentication, balloting, vote collation and vote transmission.
On the voter registration towards 2023 election, he noted that he voter enrolment software will be introduced to recapture as much fingerprints as possible, using better fingerprint capturing software and hardware, adding that it would conform in totality with the NIMC requirements for citizens registration;
He further noted that “With the plans to commence the use of electronic voting machine (EVM), it is important to update the register of voters to include additional biometric features like facials, as this will strengthen the integrity of the register.”
He also underscored “the need to have additional fields captured – like email addresses, disability status – for those who are living with disabilities”, etc stressing that all these necessitated the need for a new voter enrolment software.
