INEC releases final guideline for 2019 general elections

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on Monday, released the final electoral guideline for the 2019 general elections.

The electoral umpired, in the release, insisted on simultaneous accreditation, voting in modified document.

According to the INEC, the new regulations and guidelines were also for bye-elections, re-run elections and supplementary elections, adding that they took effect on January 10, 2019.

The Commission further noted that the final guideline superseded all other regulations and/or guidelines on the conduct of elections, revealing that though it modified some of them and it would not shift ground on the  contentious simultaneous voting and accreditation.

The Commission also made mandatory, the use of the Smart Card Readers (SCR) and use of Tendered Ballot which, insisting that it was consistent with the provision of section 60 of the Electoral Act, 2010 (as amended).

The modified regulations and guidelines for the conduct of the 2019 general elections was contained in a document released by INEC National Commissioner and Chairman of its Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye.

INEC had last week, released the draft guidelines for the conduct of the 2019 election to the 91 registered political parties, CSOs, media, professional groups, security agencies and other critical stakeholders in the electoral process, amidst criticisms.

But the Regulations and Guidelines had sparked off disagreement between

INEC and some of the political parties who argued that the commission had released the document without their input.

According to Okoye, the new guidelines and regulations have been issued after INEC had considered all the inputs made by political parties, the media and other critical stakeholders.

In the words of Okoye, “The regulations and guidelines are issued as a decision extract of the commission on January 10, 2019 and supersedes all other regulations and/or guidelines on the conduct of elections issued by the commission and shall remain in force until replaced by new regulations or amendments supported by a decision extract of the commission or an official gazette.

“These provisions are designed to strengthen the electoral process and expand access to voters.”

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The 10 points, according to INEC, which should be taken into consideration in the new regulations and guidelines were as follows:

The voting procedure for the conduct of all elections covered by the Regulations and Guidelines remains the Continuous Accreditation and Voting (CAV) as provided in section 8(a) of the  Regulations and Guidelines.

The Mandatory Use of the Smart Card Reader. This is in accordance with section 8(b) of the Regulations and Guidelines which provides that “No person shall be allowed to vote at any Polling Unit/Voting Point Settlement/Voting Point other than the one at which his/her name appears in the Register of Voters and he/she presents his/her permanent voter’s card to be verified by the Smart Card Reader (SCR), or as otherwise determined by the Commission.”

The use of Tendered Ballot has been provided, consistent with the provision of section 60 of the Electoral Act, 2010 (as amended). This is in accordance with Section 19 of the Regulations and Guidelines, 2019: “If a person claiming to be entitled to vote applies for a ballot paper after another person has voted in the name given by the claimant, he/she shall, upon satisfactory answers given to any questions put to him/her by the APO II, shall be entitled to receive a ballot paper in the same manner as any other voter; but the ballot paper shall be a tendered ballot paper and deposited in the Tendered Ballot envelope in accordance with the procedure in the Electoral Act.”