general elections, carried out in 12 states, yesterday, exposed the
flaws in the new voting technology introduced by the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Significantly, the machines failed to recognise Permanent Voter Cards
(PVCs) in some states.
In many other states, the machines' batteries went down after barely
three hours of operation.
The batteries running down within the space of time may be an issue in
an election in which voting may span at least six hours.
The failure of the biometric confirmation of potential voters was
higher in the North.
Lagos State was, however, an exception as the exercise passed off
smoothly with little hitches in the swiping of the PVCs and the
biometric confirmation of the potential voters.
The exercise was carried out in Lagos, Ekiti, Anambra, Ebonyi, Taraba,
Bauchi and Kano. The other states where the mock accreditation
exercise took place were Kebbi, Delta and Rivers States.
LAGOS: Satisfactory exercise
The event which commenced at 8 am at the 50 voting points in
Onigbongbo Ward in Ikeja, held simultaneously at the various polling
units.
Prospective voters came out in trickles with their PVCs for the
accreditation process which was done by four INEC officials in each of
the voting points.
Unlike other voting points in Onigbongbo, the turnout at most of the
polling units in Ikeja G.R.A was not impressive.
At the places Sunday Vanguard visited, the process of authentication
of the PVCs which was done by swiping of the PVCs against the Smart
Card Readers, SCRs, was smooth, just as the thumbprints of most
prospective voters were generally recognized by the SCRs.
The process of authentication lasted between 60 seconds and two minutes.
Some residents, who thought the exercise was for PVC collection,
complained that they were yet to get their PVCs, despite seeing their
names on the voters' register.
Others, who spoke to Sunday Vanguard, expressed satisfaction with the
exercise, even as they lamented that INEC was not doing enough on
public enlightenment.
The state Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, Mr. Akin Orebiyi, who
monitored the exercise, commended the exercise, noting that the result
had cleared doubts about the efficiency of the SCRs.
"The intention of today's exercise is primarily to test the efficiency
of the Smart Card Readers. That is why we are here. And we have
achieved good results. This shows that the Card Readers are efficient.
So, politicians who have doubts about the device can now see that the
device will contribute to making the elections credible'', Orebiyi
added.
RIVERS: Fake PVC
The exercise was carried out in all the 23 units of Ward 1 (Oromineke
and Ezimgbu) and the 19 voting points in Port Harcourt. The process
was carried out by 188 staff of INEC.
The state REC, Dame Gecila Khan, who monitored the testing, described
the exercise as successful.
She said the essence of the Card Reader Machine was to spot out
irregularities on the side of voters. She said the target of the
machine was met after spotting some slight irregularities.
A fake PVC that was suspected to have been cloned was spotted. The
card was discovered to have not been issued by INEC as the machine
could not recognise the bearer.
But the bearer, who did not disclose his name to journalists',
insisted that he registered and obtained the card from INEC officials.
ANAMBRA: Malfunctioning machine
THE mock accreditation conducted at Igboukwu Ward 1 in Anambra State
showed the Card Reader failing to recognise about half of those who
presented the cards. It also took between 10 seconds and 10 minutes
for the Card Reader to clear some of the prospective voters, just as
the battery of some of the machines went down after barely three hours
of operation.
Even when some people washed their hands and returned to try again,
the Card Reader still rejected their fingers.
One significant feature of the exercise was the rejection of PVCs by
some polling centers, which some of the stakeholders described as a
welcome development as it showed that nobody can vote outside the area
where he registered.
The state REC, Mr. Edwin Nwatarali, who monitored the exercise with
some of his staff, took note of the deficiencies. He however expressed
happiness that there was no incidence of the Card Reader rejecting the
PVCs brought to the polling stations by their owners.
The REC was also confronted with the issue of those who claimed that
their PVCs were already signed by other people by the time they went
to collect them, but he advised those who had such problems to report
to him for proper verification.
Read more at Vanguard:
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