The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said that Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) stored can no longer be used during elections as each voter must be authenticated with the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).
The Director General of the Electoral Institute (TEI), Dr Sa’ad Idris, stated this at a political party polling agent training and Training of Trainers (TOT) workshop in Abuja on Monday.
Idris said election personnel, including polling agents of political parties, should know their roles and what they expect.
“New innovations in the voting system that polling agents should be aware of include the BVAS introduced in the electoral process when conducting several elections in 2021.
“BVAS adds facial technology to existing fingerprint authentication and this will ensure that all voters are authenticated by one of these technologies.
“With bi-modal authentication, no one can vote more than once, because the person’s face or fingerprint will be taken during accreditation. This further guarantees the one-person-one-vote system.
“It needs to be emphasized that the stored PVC cannot be used again during the election as every voter must be authenticated by BVAS.
“The enactment of the 2022 Election Law also helps the voter accreditation process, because the law now recognizes technology (Section 47 (2) of the Law), and there are clear penalty measures for not using accreditation devices on election day. .
“Also, the total number of accreditations for the election will be taken from the total number of accreditations using the commission’s accreditation tool – BVAS.
“BVAS is the only means of accrediting voters on election day,” he said.
Idris said that, in order to improve the transparency and credibility of the election, INEC decided to make electronic copies of the PU Result Sheet (EC8A) available for the general public to view.
This, according to him, brought about the INEC Results Viewing (IReV) Portal.
“This indicates that the EC8A form filled and signed by each Presiding Officer (PO) is scanned or photographed and uploaded to the Public Domain where the Public can see it.
“This system ensures that the EC8A filled in the PU is the same as the one brought to the Collection center, as RA Collection Officers check the uploaded EC8A before collecting the results.
Idris said the participants were promised the exercise to all other party agents at different levels before the commencement of the 2023 general election.
In his speech, Chairman of the Board of Electoral Institutions (BEI), Prof. Abdullahi Zuru, reiterated INEC’s determination to ensure that every valid vote and the will of the people is carried out in the 2023 general election.
Zuru said INEC was determined to make the forthcoming elections free, fair, credible, inclusive, transparent and verifiable.
He reiterated that INEC has committed to the deployment of BVAS for voter verification, authentication and accreditation.
“To ensure absolute transparency, BVAS will also be used to upload accreditation data and election results to IReV in real time on Election Day to enable all Nigerians and foreigners to follow the election as it happens.
“The commission is determined to ensure that every valid vote will be counted, the will of the people will prevail, and the 2023 elections will be free, fair, credible, inclusive, transparent and verifiable.
“To this end, we just completed a national mock accreditation exercise on Saturday, February 4, where we tested the BVAS field performance.
“The test results were very successful and the response of Nigerians across the country was overwhelming.
“Therefore, rest assured that we are well prepared for the 2023 general elections,” Zuru said.
He said the training was designed to equip party agents with the code of conduct for party agents on election day and also highlight their roles and responsibilities in line with the 2022 Election Implementation Regulations and Guidelines and the 2022 Election Law.
“This exercise is quite important because Political Parties are empowered by Section 43 (1 & 2) of the Electoral Act, 2023, to appoint agents to protect their interests in all Polling Units where elections will be held across the country, as well as designated Collation centres.
Zuru appealed to all participants to take the exercise seriously because the task of conducting credible and peaceful elections is a collective responsibility that you share with INEC.
The participants included the national organizing secretary, national publicity secretary, women leaders and youth leaders of each party (or their representatives).