A civil society group, Yiaga Africa, has called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to urgently undertake an audit of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) following the malfunctioning of the machine in the Federal Capital Territory Area Council poll on Saturday.
The organisation urged the commission to ensure that all the technical glitches with the devices are resolved, ahead of Ekiti and Osun 2022 off-cycle gubernatorial elections.
Executive Director of Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo, who made the call yesterday in Abuja, while presenting findings from the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Council election, insisted that a comprehensive audit of the BVAS will prevent possible disenfranchisement of voters and inspire public confidence in electoral technologies being deployed by INEC for future elections.
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According to Itodo, the use of the BVAS machine in the FCT elections was fraught with challenges, including the wrong configuration of the machine.
units, failure of the machine to accredit voters, delays in RATECHs response to BVAS complaints in some polling units, as well as delays in authenticating voters within processing time.
These challenges, Itodo regretted, delayed the process and caused a major burden on voters who waited patiently to be accredited to vote.
Noting that, in some polling units observed, INEC deployed two BVAS to polling units with a high number of registered voters, the Director maintained that the body observed that, in some polling units with over 1,000 registered voters, INEC deployed only one BVAS; indicating an inconsistency in the guidelines for the BVAS deployment.
He said: “In some of the polling units observed, voters’ fingerprints were not checked using the BVAS. Indelible ink was not applied to the cuticle of voters during Yiaga Africa’s observation in 10 per cent of the observed polling units.
Yiaga Africa observers reported disenfranchisement of voters as a result of missing names on the voter register deployed to the polling unit. In the centres where the disenfranchisement occurred, the voters were holders of valid Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) assigned to those polling units.
“For such voters, INEC’s online voter verification portal also verified their registration status. Upon further investigation by Yiaga Africa, we discovered that INEC allocated voters to new polling units without informing voters of the changes to their polling units. This created confusion and prevented some voters from casting their ballot.
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Yiaga Africa observed an imbalance in the distribution of voters to new polling units. This imbalance created challenges, with the management of polling units with over 1,000 registered voters. While some polling units have as many as 2,500 registered voters, others have less than five voters within the same location.”
Founder of Albino Foundation, Jake Epelle ??noted that INEC ad-hoc officials gave priority to Persons with Disabilities (PWDs), elderly people and expectant mothers in some of the polling units observed.
He, however, regretted that most voting booths were not accessible to some categories of PWDs.
Epelle maintained that reports from observers showed that a good number of polling officers were not aware of some of the assistive devices such as braille.
Our observers note that voting aids for voters with disabilities were not available in 85 per cent of the PUs observed, and where they were, the items were not usable.
“For instance, INEC deployed leaflets instead of standard braille guides to the PUs in the colony of people with disabilities in Karon-Majigi of Gwarimpa Ward, AMAC as reported by Inclusive Friends Association,” he said.
