Femi Ayobami
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said that eligible voters in the November 6 governorship election in Anambra State must use its new Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).
Disclosing this, yesterday, in Abuja during the commission’s third quarterly meeting with political parties, INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, said the move was to eliminate the possibility of voting by identity theft using another person’s Permanent Voter Card (PVC).
According to him, many stakeholders, including leaders of political parties, had called on the commission to strengthen the voter accreditation process during elections, especially with reference to the use of incident form, where the Smart Card Reader (SCR) failed to authenticate the fingerprints of a voter.
Such concern, Yakubu added, is legitimate, given that the SCR successfully verifies any card that belongs to the polling unit, for which it is configured, irrespective of who presents it.
The INEC boss explained that “where the fingerprint and facial authentication fail,” the voter would not be allowed to vote.
“In other words, no electronic authentication, no voting,” he declared.
The commission expressed its conviction that the new machine is robust enough to further guarantee the credibility of voter authentication and transparent management of results during elections. It intends to carry out a pilot exercise with the new device in Delta State during the Isoko South 1 State Assembly by-election on Saturday, September 11, 2021.
“The BVAS is expected to perform the functions of SCR and Z-Pad in the by-election,” he said.
