The results of the general elections in 2023 will be manually tallied, according to information released on Saturday by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Despite the electronic transmission of results, the electoral body chose this method.
Festus Okoye, INEC’s National Commissioner and the Chairman of its Information and Voter Education Committee, stated that the organization would provide IReV, its result-viewing webpage, the results from polling places.
Okoye added that the Electoral Act was explicit about the proper method for collation.
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The INEC official in an interview with Punch said, “There is a marked difference between the transfer/transmission of results and the collation of results. Section 50(2) of the Electoral Act, 2022 gives the commission the absolute discretion to determine the mode and procedure of voting in an election and the transmission of election results.
“Sections 60 and 62 of the Electoral Act govern post-election procedure and collation of election results. Section 60(1) of the Act provides that the presiding officer shall, after counting the votes at a polling unit, enter the votes scored by each candidate in a form to be prescribed by the commission.
“Section 60(5) of the Act makes it mandatory that the presiding officer shall transfer the results, including a total number of accredited voters and the results of the ballot in a manner prescribed by the commission. Thereafter, the presiding officer shall after recording and announcing the results deliver the same along with election materials under security and accompanied by the candidates or their polling agents, available to such person as may be prescribed by the commission.
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“The implication of this is that the collation process of results is still essentially manual, but the collation officer must collate subject to his verification and confirmation that the number of accredited voters stated on the collated result is correct and consistent with the number of accredited voters recorded and transmitted directly from polling units.”
The collation or returning officer, according to Okoye, would use the original of the disputed collated result, accreditation information from the BVAS device, and results transmitted directly from the polling unit to determine the accuracy of the result in cases where there was a dispute regarding a collated result or the result from any polling unit.
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