Inspiring confidence in BVAS, electronic transmission of election results

“The system of using the BVAS for the conduct of elections has come to stay. There’s no going back” – Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, INEC Chairman

Africa’s biggest election will hold in February 2023 in Nigeria. It’s the seventh successive general elections in Nigeria’s 23 years of unbroken democratic expedition. With 10 million new voters added to the voters’ roll, an estimated 95 million registered voters will vote in 176,846 polling units distributed across 774 local government areas. A total of 12,163 candidates sponsored by 18 political parties are on the ballot for election into 109 senatorial districts, 360 federal constituencies, 993 state constituencies, 28 governorship positions and the Office of the President. The election is conducted against the backdrop of a new electoral law and innovations introduced by the Independent National Electoral Commission to enhance electoral integrity and inspire public confidence in the electoral process. In the final analysis, the effective implementation, or lack thereof, of these new electoral technologies will play a significant role in assessing the integrity of the 2023 general elections.

The Bimodal Voter Accreditation System and INEC Election Result Viewing Portal are two technological innovations celebrated for enhancing the transparency of election results and boosting public trust in electoral outcomes in recent elections. INEC asserts that these technologies are addressing the 10 most pervasive weaknesses in Nigeria’s election result management process, which include falsification of votes at polling units, falsification of number of accredited voters, collation of false results, mutilation of results and computational errors, swapping of results sheets, forging of results sheets, snatching and destruction of results sheets, obtaining declaration and return involuntarily, making declaration and return while result collation is still in progress and poor recordkeeping.

Both tools perform mutually reinforcing and critical functions in elections. The BVAS is a technological device used to identify and accredit voters’ fingerprints and facial recognition before voting. The device is also used for capturing images of the polling unit result sheet (Form EC8A) and uploading the image of the result sheet online. IReV is an online portal where polling unit-level results are uploaded directly from the polling unit, transmitted and published for the public. At the front end of the online portal, members of the public can create personal accounts with which they can gain access to all uploaded results stored as PDF files. This accessibility of polling unit-level results increases transparency and public trust in the process.

Despite improving public confidence in electoral outcomes, the introduction of BVAS and IReV is anathema to political actors determined to subvert the people’s will at all costs. It is, therefore, not surprising to learn of alleged attempts to torpedo INEC plans to safeguard the integrity of the election using the BVAS and IReV. A case in point is the litigation instituted in the Imo State High court seeking a restraining order against INEC to suspend the deployment of the BVAS for the general election.

Across the world, the introduction of electoral technologies has attracted contestations and controversies driven mainly by its propensity to enhance election credibility and undermine public trust in elections at the same time especially when electoral technologies are compromised. Most importantly, electoral technologies ensure efficiency in election administration and limit human interference with the electoral process. As these technologies evolve, attempts to compromise them heighten. Elections can be stolen, and voter choices upturned by compromised election officials with a click of a button. Tech tools may also be subjected to disruptive cyber-attacks. These issues amplify the essence of greater transparency by election management bodies to increase public trust and confidence in electoral technologies. Therefore, to increase the trust quotient in the BVAS and IReV, INEC should implement the following actions as a matter of urgency:

BVAS Software Optimisation: Efficiency in the delivery of electoral services builds public trust. The BVAS software should be modified and upgraded to improve voter accreditation and picture quality. Its IOS should be upgraded to introduce a feature that enables the camera to detect or capture/focus on the object of interest, such as the entire result sheet. In addition, a PDF compression script should be integrated into the portal to ease downloads of election results.

Timely conduct of penetration tests and mock exercises: In Kenya, the electoral commission is under a mandatory duty to test, verify and deploy technology at least 60 days before a general election. Nigeria’s Electoral Act has no similar provision. Notwithstanding, INEC has conducted simulation exercises for the BVAS in the past. While the 105 elections may be considered mock exercises for the BVAS and IReV, the high volume of information exchange, data processing, and transmission involved in the general election is incomparable to those elections. This is why penetration tests and mock exercises are required to assess the robustness, efficiency, security, and capacity of INEC servers and devices before their eventual deployment for the general election. Pre-deployment tests should be based on an extensive and representative methodology that integrates stakeholder consultation and public participation. Sharing the outputs of the test/exercises will enlist public support for the BVAS and IReV, just as creating opportunities for independent verification and audits of electoral technologies will be pivotal to inspiring public confidence. While there has been no successful cyber-attack to date on the BVAS and IReV, the public will require assurances of the durability, reliability and robustness of INEC’s tech defence system.

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Very bad news for some persons.
Once they hear "vote wisely " or give us "free and fair election " , they become pained and angry.

E don reach Tinubu turn you now remembered to use BVAS ?

Is the INEC so called chairman not fulani? Taqiya easily spotted. Only the zombidiots are being fooled. Biafra is our only hope.

Tinubu and his slaves will not like this news

Tinubu hates free and fair elections with passion

Massiveglory:
Very bad news for some persons.
Once they hear "vote wisely " or give us "free and fair election " , they become pained and angry.

You are being fooled and massively dumb and daft at that, if you think your votes can ever win you election in nigeria.

FallenShitHole:

You are being fooled and massively dumb and daft at that, if you think your votes can ever win you election in nigeria.

Who lose this one from yaba?

Massiveglory:

Who lose this one from yaba?

Zombidiot, when the scales finally fall off your sleeping eyes, you fools will come back shouting Biafra. PDP and APC primaries should have thought you dumbos some lessons about the fulanis and their nigeria agenda, but daftness is something that comes handy. Interesting thing is that time is ticking and we will be here to laugh at your stupidity when you will start to complain bitterly.

FallenShitHole:

You are being fooled and massively dumb and daft at that, if you think your votes can ever win you election in nigeria.

Bad egg, you people should start saying something positive about this country

Buhari no send any emilokan. On BVAS we stand gidigbaaaa!

I am in support of anything that will make Atiku go back to Cameroon after 2023 elections.

No sleep for agbado and Etiku

USA test SATAN bomber

Great news

Hehehe.

The era of snatching ballot boxes and writing results are over. The only problem I see now is vote buying. If INEC can find a way to tackle vote buying,then we are good to go.

Even if it's not holistic,but some measures should be put in place to limit vote buying. Most especially those ones sharing money at the pulling unit's.

Why are you people making Agbadorians cry.
Why are you stopping their rigging plans because they had believed that they can Bleep Nigerians up any how they like and then use rigging to impose themselves again on us but Buhari slapped their face with the signing of the electoral bill


Kiki Kiki kikii
I am laughing in igbo language

Validated:
Buhari no send any emilokan. On BVAS we stand gidigbaaaa!

No change your tone oh!

One step forward. But what of burning of voters card and by force collection pvc by market leaders in Lagos?

Nice, let's see how the urchins will rig the election

But what if dem dey bobo us to feel chill that all will be well, I don't trust this urchins, cos I have seen and heard the manufactured IT's in electoral room, Abuja

Good .

This is good news to all healthy minds out there ...

Agbadorians and Mikanos right now
There only hope of rigging has been squashed, watch them cry under this post

bigfish3k:
R

use your head

BVAS will particularly deal with rigging in the north east and north west ..
Those areas record a whooping 87% rigging during general elections ...


Lagos is not too susceptible to rigging .
because the power of the non indigenes are too strong to be surpressed

One of the legacies of this present government lead by President Buhari...Electoral Act 2022.

Chai..

Manual records from polling units are what would vindicate e-results so no need to ever panic at all..

Cuz if it's to be based on e-system alone, we can employ hackers that will tantamount the result to what ever figure we want.

Any one who win next year election is the real winner is only looser than will say rig
Election can't be rig again

Vote buying is optional u can take or reject money voting is private

Cyynthia:
E don reach Tinubu turn you now remembered to use BVAS ?

worry about your pandora and leave Tinubu alone

Progress

Woman Whose Only Child Was Thrown In A Well By Her Neighbour Retaliates By Throwing All The Woman's Children Into The Well

https://gist.am/q/woman-whose-only-child-was-thrown-in-a-well-by-her-neighbour-retaliates-by-thro

Say it loud! Our votes must count