THE NIGERIAN NATIONAL ASSEMBLY MEMBERS SHOULD LOOK INTO THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF ELECTORAL REFORMS..

SOME SUGGESTED MODIFICATIONS TO THE SECTION-60 & SECTION-64 OF THE ELECTORAL-ACT

This thread Starts from the suggested amendments to Section-60:-(Sub-Section-5)

Section-60(5):
“(5) The presiding officer shall transfer the results including total number of accredited voters and the results of the ballot in a manner as prescribed by the Commission.”


Suggested Amendments:
The Act should specify the means and the medium through which the commission shall “prescribe” the “manner” for the transmission of the results and the accreditation data.
(Any “means and medium” that is NOT intended by the Act Should Not be included in the list).

This sub-section should also remove the word “Transfer” and replace it with “Transmission”.
And also, the Act should clearly state the source of the transmission as well as the destination of the transmission.

The equipment and mode for the transmission should also be mentioned in the Act.
This sub-section should also indicate the maximum allowable timeline for the delay of the transmission of the accreditation data and the polling unit results by the presiding officer; and the penalties for delaying the transmission beyond the maximum allowable timeline should be stated in the Act.

**(The suggested timeline to be allowed for the maximum delay of the transmission of the polling-unit results should be 11:59pm on the election day).



Section-60: - (ALL SUB-SECTIONS)
“60.—(1) The Presiding officer shall, after counting the votes at the polling unit, enter the votes scored by each candidate in a form to be prescribed by the Commission as the case may be.

(2) The form shall be signed and stamped by the presiding officer and counter signed by the candidates or their polling agents where available at the polling unit.
(3) The presiding officer shall give to the polling agents and the police officer where available a copy each of the completed forms after it has been duly signed as provided under subsection-(2).

(4) The presiding officer shall count and announce the result at the polling unit.

(5) The presiding officer shall transfer the results including total number of accredited voters and the results of the ballot in a manner as prescribed by the Commission.

(6) A presiding officer who willfully contravenes any provision of this section commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine not more thanN500,000 or imprisonment for a term of at least six months.”


Suggested Amendments:
In addition to all the existing sub-sections in Section-60, the section should clearly specify that the presiding officer shall first transmit the “AUTOMATICALLY-GENERATED ACCREDITATION DATA” from the voting device to the appropriate collation system for the collation of only the automatically generated accreditation data - before proceeding to sort and count the results.

After counting the results, the presiding officer shall - in front of the polling agents and everybody present - manually key-in the following results data into the transmission software of the voting device:
a). the votes scored by the various parties,
b). the number of accredited voters,
c). the number of voided votes,
d). the total votes cast,
e). and the SERIAL-NUMBERS of the hand-written result-sheets..
The Presiding Officer should then transmit same data-set to the APPROPRIATE COLLATION SYSTEM.

**(Here below are the suggested destinations for the transmission of the various results and accreditation data)

a). Automatically-generated accreditation data should be transmitted to a separate collation system meant specifically for ONLY the collation of the Automatically-generated accreditation data in the voting device.

b). The keyed-in results (including the keyed-in accreditation data) at the polling unit should be transmitted to a separate collation-system meant specifically for the electronic collation of the KEYED-IN POLLING UNIT RESULTS. The information contained in the collation system is only visible to the appropriate collation officers through their various technological collation devices.

c). A CLEAR PICTURE of the duly completed and signed results-sheet shall be taken with the voting device by the presiding officer, and transmitted to a separate PUBLICLY VIEWABLE SERVER which would be meant specifically for the uploading the pictures of the results-sheets. The photos of results that are uploaded to the photos-server shall be instantly made visible on the publicly viewable photos-server, so that the voters can also see the photos of the results of their polling units immediately they are being uploaded. The pictures uploaded to this server will serve for verification purpose.

d) The collated results that were transmitted by the collation officers at all the various collation centers should be transmitted to a separate secondary collation-system meant specifically for the electronic collation of only the Collation Officers’ results.
The results collated by all these collation systems should be made available in the technological “Collation Device” of the Collation Officer or the Returning Officer in such a way that each collation device receives only the results of the collation-centers or polling-units that are directly under its coverage.

The Electoral-Act should also indicate that the results of polling units that fails to be successfully transmitted and electronically collated by the Collation System beyond the maximum time allowed for the delay in transmission shall not be collated by the collation officers.

**(as earlier stated, the suggested timeline to be allowed for the maximum delay of the transmission of the polling unit results should be 11:59pm on the election day).

Polling-unit results that were not collated by the collation officers due to non-transmission to the collation system, or due to delayed transmission beyond the prescribed timeline, can only be considered and added by the returning officer during the final review of the collated results, provided that the photos of such Polling-unit results had been successfully uploaded to the appropriate photos-server (which is meant for the uploading of photos of results-sheets) before the time of the final review by the Returning Officer.

At the expiration of the timeline allowed for the transmission of the polling-units results, all pending polling-unit transmission of results to the polling-units collation system shall be temporarily suspended. Nevertheless, the transmission of the collated results by the collation officers to the appropriate collation system meant for the transmission and collation of the already-collated results, as well as the uploading of the captured photos of the results-sheets (both the photos of the Polling-units results and those of the collated results in the various collation centers) to the photos-server can continue without being suspended.


...
...
..
Section-64(4)(a):
“(4) A collation officer or returning officer at an election shall collate and announce the result of an election, subject to his or her verification and confirmation that the—

(a) number of accredited voters stated on the collated result are correct and consistent with the number of accredited voters recorded and transmitted directly from polling units under section-47(2) of this Act”

Suggested Amendments:
The second part of this paragraph should read:
“.... number of accredited voters AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED IN THE VOTING DEVICE and...”

● The part that said “..under Section-47(2)..” should be corrected to:
“... under section-47(2) and section-60(5)...”


Section-64(4)(b):
“(4) A collation officer or returning officer at an election shall collate and announce the result of an election, subject to his or her verification and confirmation that the—

(b) the votes stated on the collated result are correct and consistent with the votes or results recorded and transmitted directly from polling units under section-60(4) of this Act.


Suggested Amendments:
The second part of this paragraph should read:
“.... the votes or results THAT ARE KEYED-IN INTO THE VOTING DEVICE and transmitted directly....”
● The part that said “..under Section-60(4)..” should be corrected to:
“... under section-60(5) of this Act....”



Section-64(5):
“(5) Subject to subsection-(1), a collation officer or returning officer shall use the number of accredited voters recorded and transmitted directly from polling units under section-47(2) of this Act and the votes or results recorded and transmitted directly from polling units under Section-60(4) of this Act to collate and announce the result of an election if a collated result at his or a lower level of collation is not correct.”

Suggested Amendments:
● “subject to subsection-(1)” should be corrected to now read:
“subject to subsection-(4)”

● “..Section-47(2)..” should be corrected to now read:
“...Section-47(2) and Section-60(5)...”

● “..Section-60(4)..” should be corrected to now read:
“...Section-60(5).......”


**Thus, Section-64(5) should be corrected to:

“Subject to subsection-(4), a collation officer or returning officer shall use the number of accredited voters AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED IN THE VOTING DEVICE and transmitted directly from polling units under Section-47(2) and Section-60(5) of this Act, and the votes and/or the results THAT WERE KEYED-IN INTO THE VOTING DEVICE and transmitted directly from polling units under Section-60(5) of this Act, as well as the transmitted photos of the results, to collate and announce the result of an election - if a collated result at his level of collation or a lower level of collation is not correct.”



Section-64(6)(c):in
“(6) Where during collation of results, there is a dispute regarding a collated result or the result of an election FROM ANY POLLING UNIT, the collation officer or returning officer shall use the following to determine the correctness of the disputed result—

(c) data of accreditation recorded and transmitted directly from each polling unit where the election is disputed as prescribed under section-47(2) of this Act.”


Suggested Amendments:
The paragraph should be adjusted to include:
“.... number of accredited voters AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED IN THE VOTING DEVICE and...”

● The part that said “..under Section-47(2)..” should be corrected to now read:
“... under section-47(2) and section-60(5)...”

Section-64(6)(d):
“(6) Where during collation of results, there is a dispute regarding a collated result or the result of an election FROM ANY POLLING UNIT, the collation officer or returning officer shall use the following to determine the correctness of the disputed result—

(d) the votes and result of the election recorded and transmitted directly from each polling unit where the election is disputed, as prescribed under section-60(4) of this Act.”


Suggested Amendments:
The paragraph should be adjusted to include:
“.... the votes and/or results THAT WERE KEYED-IN INTO THE VOTING DEVICE and transmitted directly....”

● The part that said “..under Section-60(4)..” should now read:
“... under section-60(5) of this Act...”


SUGGESTED ADDITIONAL PARAGRAPHS TO THE SUB-SECTION-6 OF SECTION-64:

**“A collation officer who did not properly settle ALL the disputes that were raised at his or her collation center and level of collation, and goes ahead to announce the debated collated results with all the pending unresolved disputes in the collated results, had breached the provisions of the
Act.”**

The Electoral-Act should state the Exact Penalties for such breach.


Section-64: - (ALL SUB-SECTIONS)
“64.—(1) The presiding officer shall endorse the word “rejected” on the ballot paper rejected under section-52(1) of this Act and for any other reason, and the ballot papers shall not be counted except otherwise allowed by the returning officer who may overrule the presiding officer.

(2) If an objection to the decision of a presiding officer to reject a ballot paper is raised by a candidate or a polling agent at the time the decision is made, the presiding officer shall add to the word “rejected”, the phrase “but objected to”.

(3) The presiding officer shall prepare a statement on rejected ballot papers, stating the number rejected, the reason for rejection and their serial number, and he or she shall on request, allow a candidate or a polling agent to copy the statement.

(4) A collation officer or returning officer at an election shall collate and announce the result of an election, subject to his or her verification and confirmation that the—

(a) number of accredited voters stated on the collated result are correct and consistent with the number of accredited voters recorded and transmitted directly from polling units under section-47(2) of this Act; and

(b) the votes stated on the collated result are correct and consistent with the votes or results recorded and transmitted directly from polling units under section-60(4) of this Act.

(5) Subject to subsection-(1), a collation officer or returning officer shall use the number of accredited voters recorded and transmitted directly from polling units under section-47(2) of this Act and the votes or results recorded and transmitted directly from polling units under section-60(4) of this Act to collate and announce the result of an election if a collated result at his or a lower level of collation is not correct.

(6) Where during collation of results, there is a dispute regarding a collated result or the result of an election from any polling unit, the collation officer or returning officer shall use the following to determine the correctness of the disputed result—

(a) the original of the disputed collated result for each polling unit where the election is disputed;
(b) the smart card reader or other technology device used for accreditation of voters in each polling unit where the election is disputed for the purpose of obtaining accreditation data directly from the smart card reader or technology device;
(c) data of accreditation recorded and transmitted directly from each polling unit where the election is disputed as prescribed under section-47(2) of this Act; and
(d) the votes and result of the election recorded and transmitted directly from each polling unit where the election is disputed, as prescribed under Section-60(4) of this Act.

(7) If the disputed result under subsection-(6) were otherwise found not to be correct, the collation officer or returning officer shall re-collate and announce a new result using the information in subsection-(6);(a)-(d).

(8.) Where the dispute under subsection-(6) arose at the level of collation and the returning officer has satisfied the provision of subsection-(6);(a)-(d), the returning officer shall accordingly declare the winner of the election.

(9) A returning officer or collation officer, as the case may be, commits an offence if he or she intentionally collates or announces a false result and is liable on conviction to a fine of N5,000,000 or imprisonment for a term of at least three years or both.”

***To be continued BELOW in the next comment...

Source:
NAME OF E-BOOK:
“SOME SUGGESTED AMENDMENTS TO THE NIGERIAN ELECTORAL ACT 2022.”
((Pages: 28-32; And from Pages: 33-46))

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GAp0cegDplx-E9FgXRXcI5uDX6tgW-cw

***Continued from the main post..
..

Suggested Amendments and possible additional sub-sections to the Section-64:

The Section-64 is the only section which tried to guide the electoral officers on the procedures for the Collation of Results after the voting process had been completed.

Thus, there is need to introduce more detailed sub-sections which would throw more lights on the proper procedures for the collation of the election results.

Therefore, in addition to all the existing sub-sections; Section-64 should have further sub-sections as suggested below:

a). A Collation Officer or Returning Officer shall have a technological “Collation Device” which provides the collation officer with all the appropriate collated results which were made available from the various appropriate collation systems.

(b) The collated results that shall be available on the collation device include the computer-collated results received from the Collation System for the directly transmitted polling unit results, as well as the manually collated results that were transmitted to the secondary collation system by only the direct down-line collation officers where applicable.

c). The Collation Device of the first-level collation officers (Ward Collation Officers) do not need to have the manually collated results that were transmitted by any direct down-line collation officers, since there are no other down-line collation officers below them - except the presiding officers at the polling units.

d). The collation device of a collation officer or returning officer shall contain only the necessarily applicable transmitted polling units results, or the necessarily applicable computer-collated results as well as the transmitted collated results from the direct down-line collation officers under him or her.

**(This means that a Collation Officer or Returning Officer shall not see the results of any other collation center, or the results of any other polling units which are not under his or her coverage of collation.)

The commission (INEC) shall ensure that all the electoral devices at all levels are configured properly in order to perform accordingly as stated in the Electoral-Act.

e). For the first-level collation officers (Ward-Level collation officers), if there are polling units that are not yet available on the Collation Device, they shall wait until after the expiration of the maximum delay time allowed for polling unit transmission, before they can go ahead to collate and announce their results with only the available polling units on the collation device, provided that the automatically generated number of accredited voters in the polling unit coincided with the keyed-in number of accredited voters, and the keyed-in results coincided with the photos of the results uploaded to the photos-server.

The first-level collation officers shall not collate the results of those polling units that are not available on the collation device, -- not minding the fact that the hard-copies of such Polling-unit results are available, **(and also without minding the fact that the uploaded photos of such missing Polling-unit results on the collation device are already available on the publicly viewable photos-server).

f). For higher-level collation officers and the returning officers, if the collated results of any (or some) of the direct down-line collation officers are not yet available on the collation device, the affected down-line collation officer(s) shall provide the hard-copy as well as the soft-copy of their collated results, and also an attestation and a proof that the collated results which they presented were the same as the one they already transmitted from the COLLATION CENTER, but were delayed due to poor network or other unforeseen circumstances.
Nevertheless, the computer-collated results of the polling-units which are available on the collation officer’s collation device must be used to verify and confirm the collation figures presented by such down-line collation officers.

g). The results on the Collation Device, as well as the process of keying-in of the collated results by the collation officer shall ALL be DISPLAYED and made clearly visible at the Collation Center where the accredited polling agents and media personnel shall see it.

h). At the end of the maximum allowable waiting time for transmission of the Polling-unit results, the commission shall issue an instant notice to all the Collation Officers, and at the same time, suspend all further polling-units results from being transmitted to the collation system, -- until after the final results had been declared, and all possible reviews completed, then the remaining suspended polling-unit results can be transmitted to the collation system..
**Nevertheless, the uploading of the photos of the polling unit results to the publicly viewable photos-server, which is meant for the uploading of photos of results-sheets, shall not be suspended.

i). At the end of the collation at every collation center, the collation officer shall key-in the collated Results, total accredited voters, total voided votes, and the total votes into the transmission software of the collation device, and transmit same to the appropriate collation system meant for the transmission and collation of the already Collated Results.

j). A CLEAR PICTURE of the duly completed Collated Results shall be taken with the collation device by the Collation officer, and transmitted to the publicly viewable photos-server which is meant specifically for the uploading of pictures of results sheets.
The picture will also serve for verification purposes.

k). The penalties for outright NON-TRANSMISSION of the collated results from the collation center by the collation officer before proceeding to the venue of the next level of collation should be specified in the Act.
Collation Officers shall be mandated by the Act to transmit their collated results from their various collation centers and upload the picture of the collated result sheet to the photos-server before leaving their venue of collation to deliver the hard copies of their collated results to the higher-level collation officer at the higher-level collation center.

l). The temporary stoppage of the transmission of POLLING UNIT RESULTS by the Commission after the expiration of the maximum delay-time SHALL NOT affect the transmission of the Collated Results by the Collation Officers from their Collation Centers.

m). At the end of the collation by the final returning officer, he or she shall announce the initially collated results without declaring or returning a winner; after which a review period of 72-hours maximum shall be allowed for the returning officer, at the end of which a winner can be declared and returned.

n). During the review period, all the possible disputes to the computer-collated results as well as all the omitted polling unit results that were not transmitted within the initial window-period for the transmission of polling unit results, shall be fully reviewed and added accordingly and be re-tallied again properly by the returning officer, provided that he or she is satisfied that the uploaded photos of the results-sheets of such omitted polling units are available on the appropriate server meant for the uploading of photos of the polling units results, and that they are consistent with the hard-copies that were presented for review; and that these polling units results are also verified and confirmed by all the polling agents present, else such omitted polling unit results should not be included by the Returning Officer.

o). If all possible disputes, including the disputes to the collated results by the down-line collation officers were all treated and settled before the maximum allowed review time of 72-hours, the returning officer may declare the final collated results and return a winner without having to wait for 72-hours.

p). At the end of the review period, if there are still persisting unresolved disputes, the returning officer shall declare the final results as at the end of the 72-hours, and return a winner, putting into consideration the disputes that were already resolved within the review period.

q). The collation as well as the reviewing of the collated results by the Returning officer shall ALL be DISPLAYED, and be made clearly visible at the Final Collation Center where the accredited polling agents and the accredited media personnel shall be seeing the display screen clearly.

r). A returning officer shall key-in the Final Collated Result into his or her collation device and transmit same to the appropriate collation system after the declaration of the final results.
He or she shall also take A CLEAR PICTURE of the Final Collated Result and transmit appropriately to the photos-server.

s). A returning officer who declares the final result of an election before the elapse of the 72-hours whereas there are still persisting unresolved disputes, had breached the Act.
There should be penalties for such erring Returning Officer.

t). Immediately the final results are declared, and the winner announced, the commission shall publish all the results in all the Collation Systems on their website where they are available to be made available to the public within 48 hours.
These results include:
a). the collated accreditation data from the accreditation collation system which were automatically generated and transmitted by the voting device while the voting was going on.
b). the direct polling-units computer-collated results from the primary collation system which were the results sent by the presiding officers at the various polling-units - including all those delayed polling-units results which were later transmitted after the final results had been declared (all those delayed polling-units results which were later transmitted must be indicated in the published results, so as to aid independent forensic auditors).
c). the secondary collated results from the secondary collation system which were transmitted by the various collation officers at the different levels of collation which also include the final results-collation sheet which was transmitted by the final returning officer.
d). the final numbers of the remaining ballot papers and booklets from the collation system for the collation of the numbers of the remaining electoral materials which were transmitted by both the presiding officers at the polling-units as well as the various logistics officers at the various levels of collection points of these materials.

Any person or party who wants to have the certified true copies of these results, whether in part or in whole, shall apply accordingly to the Chief National Electoral Commissioner or any other appropriate officer of the commission – as the case may be.

u). Electoral devices used in an election shall not be tampered with, or recycled for use in any other election if the election in which it was used for is still undergoing review by the
commission.

v). Polling unit results and the collated results that are transmitted to the collation systems as well as the photos of the same results that are uploaded to the photos-server for the benefit of the viewing public shall be deemed as the exact representations of the same original results that were transmitted and/or uploaded by the appropriate electoral officers, unless contested at the Tribunal or court of competent jurisdiction with the certified true copies of the duplicate copies of the results that were given to the police, or the originals of the duplicate copies of the results that were given to the party agents, and found to be manipulated.

w). The reproduced certified true copies of the transmitted results, both the results that were transmitted directly from the polling units and those that were transmitted from the various collation centers, which were used by the commission to collate and announce results during the election, as well as the reproduced certified true copies of the photos of the results which were uploaded to the photos-server, and which were certified and released by the commission as the true copies, shall ALL be deemed as the exact representations of the same original results that were transmitted and/or uploaded by the appropriate electoral officers, unless contested at the Tribunal or court of competent jurisdiction with the certified true copies of the duplicate copies of the results that were given to the POLICE, or the ORIGINALS of the duplicate copies of the results that were given to the party agents, and found to be manipulated.

x). The Act should indicate a timeline after the election within which the commission must release a detailed demographic report of the persons who participated in the election and also publish it on the commission’s website. The report shall contain the number of those voters who came out to vote, whose voter-information were successfully found on the electronic register, but were not successfully authenticated for voting.
The report shall also contain some categorizations according to gender, age-ranges, occupations and so on. This report shall also be broken down from state to state. Same report shall be forwarded to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) for data updating.
The suggested timeline for this report is 14-days after the final results were announced.

y). The Act should mandate the commission to conduct a compulsory in-depth forensic inspection of all the deployed electoral technologies which were used in the election, and publish the forensic reports on their website within a certain timeline after the election. These technologies include the voting devices, collation devices, all the various collation systems, and including the photos-servers.
The suggested timeline for the publishing of this forensic report is 14-days after the final results were announced.

** (Important Notes):
The Act should explain some of these terms in Section-152..
Such terms as:
“Transmission”,
“Collation System”,
“Server”,
“Collation Device”,
“Computer-Collated Results”,
etc.

Source:
BOOK TITLE:
“SOME SUGGESTED AMENDMENTS TO THE NIGERIAN ELECTORAL ACT 2022.”
((Pages: 28-32; And from Pages: 33-46))

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GAp0cegDplx-E9FgXRXcI5uDX6tgW-cw

More items

Lalasticlala, Seun, Nlfpmod, Fergie001

Hope the relevant stakeholders especially INEC and the NASS take note. Weldone for all the good works you are doing here to educate the public on some of these obscure electoral guidelines.

Racoon:
Hope the relevant stakeholders especially INEC and the NASS take note. Weldone for all the good works you are doing here to educate the public on some of these obscure electoral guidelines.

Thanks Bro.

Why not forward this to your constituency Senator and HOR to table it on the floor of Parliament

helinues:


Why not forward this to your constituency Senator and HOR to table it on the floor of Parliament

I have done that Many Many Many times.

And they have not given me any good feedback.

(My Senator actually told me that he is not a member of the Electoral Reforms Committee of the Senate.. And I told him to forward “THE BOOK” to any of the Senators in the committee,, or even to the Chairman of the committee... And since then, he stopped responding to me, no matter how hard I tried to reach to him.)


...
Thanks so much for your suggestion.
I means that you cared to at-least read a good portion of what I wrote up there.

Garfield1, Penguin2, Dalitigator

BluntCrazeMan:
I have done that Many Many Many times.

And they have not given me any good feedback.

(My Senator actually told me that he is not a member of the Electoral Reforms Committee of the Senate.. And I told him to forward BOOK to any of the Senators in the committee,, or even to the Chairman of the committee... And since then, he stopped responding to me, no matter how hard I tried to reach to him.)


...
Thanks so much for your suggestion.
I means that you cared to at-least read a good portion of what I wrote up there.

Search for the Senators and HOA who are in the electoral committee online

I took time to read all this and it's worth it

Well done boss

Bethel4Life:
I took time to read all this and it's worth it

Well done boss

Thanks so much.

I appreciate.

Mynd44