The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has ruled out its earlier plan to electronically transmit the 2019 general election results and instead sticking to a nationwide pilot.
According to a news report, INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu revealed that the commission would only do a nationwide pilot of electronic transmission of election results in 2019 citing reasons like lack of legal backing.
Apparently, there’s no legal backing for electronic transmission which is why a nationwide pilot may be appropriate. With no legal backing at the moment, the question is about when INEC will eventually get legal baking for full electronic transmission of election results?
Worthy of note is that the commission has tested e-transmission of results with off-season elections since 2015.
Furthermore, Yakubu said the results of the presidential election would not be delayed in a bid to reduce the tension that’s always associated with delayed election results in the country.
In 2016, the National Assembly of Nigeria re-introduced electronic voting for its plenary sessions. It is expected that this could propel e-voting on a national scale. But as it is, e-voting is not happening in Nigeria in 2019 and even the electronic transmission will be a pilot phase.
As stated after the observation of the local government elections in Kaduna State, where e-voting machines were utilised earlier in the year, Nigeria is not ready for e-voting yet.
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