Yiaga Africa urges INEC to address challenges during mock accreditation exercise

By Tobias Lengnan Dapam

Yiaga Africa has called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to address challenges discovered during the mock accreditation exercise before elections.

INEC on Saturday, February 4, 2023, conducted a mock accreditation exercise in 436 polling units selected in each senatorial district in the 36 states and the FCT.

But Yiaga Africa said several challenges were discovered from the BVAS function and network failure, including transfer of voters to other polling units without their consent.

While reading the report on Friday in Abuja, Yiaga Africa said, INEC should make public its reports on the set-up and testing of the BVAS and mock accreditation and provide updates on the steps taken to address the challenges identified during the BVAS testing and mock accreditation.

“INEC should investigate cases where the BVAS failed to authenticate the biometrics of voters, despite having the names on the register. This will inspire public confidence in the BVAS and IReV.

“As a matter of national emergency, INEC should notify all voters affected by the migration of polling units of changes to their polling units via text messages, emails, and phone calls if possible. In addition, a copy of the voter register should be posted across polling units for voter to confirm their polling unit. This should be backed by a national campaign on locate and confirm your polling units via online and offline platforms.”

The report urged INEC to replicate the transmission of the accreditation data on the BVAS to the IReV in the general election.

“Transmitting accreditation figures enhances the transparency of elections as it gives citizens the opportunity to check the consistency of the number of accredited voters recorded on the BVAS and the accreditation figures entered on the result sheet by polling officials.

“INEC should educate polling officials on recording and documentation of election figures, to avoid discrepancies between the accreditation data uploaded by the BVAS to the IReV and the figures recorded on the polling unit result sheet.

“INEC should ensure all the BVAS devices deployed for the mock accreditation are reconfigured to read zero in the field for accreditation before they deployed for the general election. A monitoring team to supervise and monitor the reconfiguration is highly recommended.”

The report also called on registered voters to utilize platforms provided by INEC to locate and confirm their polling units before election day, saying it will fast-track the process of voting on election day.

The report called on National Assembly to consider further amendments to the Electoral Act 2022 after the 2023 general elections to make the conduct of testing and mock exercises for electoral technologies mandatory including timelines for the conduct of these exercises

“Political parties should educate party agents on the process of accreditation and results management process to ensure effective oversight and avert undue interference with the process on election day.

“Civil society, media and international partners should undertake and support campaign initiatives aimed at assisting voters to locate and confirm their polling unit including inspiring confidence in the BVAS and IReV.”