Political candidates are making fruitless attempts to rig the 2023 general elections, according to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The Bimodal Voter Registration System (BVAS), which will be used to authenticate and accredit voters starting in 2023, will reject biometric information from people who are not the original owners of traded PVCs, according to INEC.
Festus Okoye, the national commissioner of INEC, said on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, “In terms of any politician bypassing the BVAS, I want to tell you that that will not happen, that is an impossibility.”
The Northern Elders Forum and the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, two non-governmental organisations, claimed that politicians are buying PVCs from underprivileged voters to rig the upcoming elections.
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However, Okoye on Sunday referred to the desperate politicians’ plan to rig the next election as “an impossibility” and called it impossible.
He insisted that possessing a PVC that does not belong to one is an electoral offence and that it is the responsibility of the security agencies to track down and prosecute offenders.
Some politicians are very upbeat; they typically make contingency plans; they continue to believe that there is a chance they can defeat the BVAS that we will use for voter accreditation and authentication, but their effort will be fruitless.
“Anyone who purchases a permanent voters card is merely participating in a pointless endeavour.
The only thing anyone can do is make sure the voter does not cast a ballot on election day, but if you attempt to cast a ballot using a voter’s card that belongs to someone else and you arrive at the polling place on election day, that is impossible because the BVAS will not be able to capture your fingerprint, Okoye said.
Removal of Polling Places Near Politicians’ Homes
In order to ensure electoral integrity, polling units have been removed from important politicians’ homes, churches, mosques, and shrines, according to the INEC commissioner.
In order to ensure free and fair elections in 2023, he charged voters with supporting the commission’s initiatives through shared responsibility and mandate protection.
He added, “We removed polling units from places we considered not conducive for electoral business, such as polling units from traditional rulers’ palaces, polling units from close proximity to politicians’ homes, polling units from shrines, and polling units from places.
Who is BVAS feared by?
There have been recent reports that politicians opposed to the BVAS are attempting to use the legal system to prevent INEC from using the BVAS and INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) in the elections scheduled for next year.
However, the electoral body has repeatedly reaffirmed its commitment and determination to use the system for the general elections scheduled for 2023.
The Electoral Act of 2022 makes reference to the BVAS, a technological system that enables voter accreditation through biometrics collection and the uploading of results, among other things.
Many people have described it as an improvement over the smartcard reader used in the most recent general elections, which had some positive effects on the nation’s electoral system.
If BVAS fails, INEC reveals its plans.
On Sunday, Okoye claimed that the electoral management body had already planned for the use of the BVAS in the more than 176,000 polling places across the nation.
But he added that INEC has also planned for backup BVAS units in case a machine fails.
“We are going to have some spare BVAS for each electoral ward that can be quickly deployed if there is a problem or a challenge in any of our polling unit.
Additionally, we have trained technical support personnel on hand who can step in if there is a problem with the BVAS.
But if the BVAS continues to malfunction up until the polls close, Okoye said, “the Electoral Act requires that we invalidate voting in that specific polling unit and repeat voting within 24 hours.”
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