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By Chukwudi Nweje
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has made further clarification on the electronic collation and transmission of results.
It said the process, which is one of the most progressive provisions of the Electoral Act 2022 for result management from the Polling Units (PUs) to various levels of collation and declaration of winners, is still manual as it involves the recording of results on forms (as determined by the commission) and their delivery to various levels of collation until the electoral commission declarers the result and return a winner, the law also provides for electronic transmission of results.
“The law provides for a dual mode. The first mode is the four-step manual procedure at PUs, involving: counting of ballot papers, recording of results on specific form (EC8A), endorsement of EC8A by candidates/polling agents, physical delivery to collation centres; The second mode entails a two-step electronic procedure from PUs, involving: recording of accreditation data, and direct transmission of results,” it stated in a statement, yesterday.
INEC said in the event of dispute arising during collation, the electronically transmitted result would be used to resolve it as provided for in Section 60 of the Electoral Act which deals with the counting of votes, their entry into specific forms endorsed by the commission officials and candidates/polling agents and their transfer to collation centres.
The commission further said the implementation process of the electronic transmission of results requires that after an election and the completion of results management procedure at the polling unit, the presiding officer transmit a clear image of EC8A for purposes of collation to the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) and delivers by hand, the hard copy of EC8A and the BVAS to the registration area (RA) collation officer.
The result held temporarily as part of IReV and the number of accredited voters in the BVAs are compared with what is recorded in the manually delivered result to effect collation.
The IReV result or the scanned image of the EC8A from the BVAS should also be used in case any issue arises during collation and there is need to resolve any dispute regarding the results, following the procedure provided in the Clause 93(a) of the commission’s regulations and guidelines for elections, 2022. The same scenario should be implemented from one level of collation to a higher one until the result is declared and a return is made. This approach integrates the IReV images into the collation process to satisfy the electronic (direct) transmission of results.
There was public outcry last week following a pronouncement credited to the electoral umpire that the forthcoming polls would be collated manually.
