Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has ruled out the use of the electronic voting systems for the country’s general election.
INEC chairperson, Prof Attahiru Jega, said the commission does not have the legal backing to conduct elections through electronic means.
In any case, he said, while such a system is laudable, the commission currently does not have the capacity to conduct elections using the scheme.
He noted that the act establishing INEC prohibits the commission from conducting using the electronic system.
“There is a provision of the INEC Act that says electronic voting is prohibited. INEC is law-abiding. We will do what the law says.
"Unless the Electoral Act is amended to accommodate electronic voting, there is no way we can do electronic voting.
"Even if that provision is changed, we will still have to look and see whether or not it is feasible. So, to be honest, it is unlikely that we will do electronic voting in 2015,” Jega said.
The INEC leader noted that though the commission had not given the nation a “perfect” election previously, it was determined to overcome its challenges.
Jega said electronic voting systems might offer advantages compared to other voting techniques.
"An electronic voting system can be involved in any one of a number of steps in the setup, distributing, voting, collecting and counting of ballots.
"It has however been demonstrated that as voting systems become more complex and include software, different methods of election fraud becomes possible," Jega said.
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