INEC to consider manual accreditation for 2019 elections

Nigeria’s electoral body, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Tuesday said manual accreditation of voters will be considered should electronic card reader fail during the 2019 general election.

“However, where the biometric authentication fails, the voter will be required to thumbprint a box next to his/her picture on the register and to enter his/her mobile telephone number before proceeding to vote,” said INEC chairman Mahmood Yakubu.

Yakubu, who spoke at a quarterly consultative meeting with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) ahead of the elections in Abuja, said card readers during accreditation will be used to confirm, verify and authenticate the voter.

“On this note, let me re-emphasise the Commission’s policy that the Smart Card Readers will be used for the 2019 General Elections for accreditation of voters. It shall be used to confirm that the permanent voters’ card (PVC) is genuine and issued by INEC,” Yakubu said.

Yakubu, however, stated that PVC collection would not be done by representation or proxy.

The INEC boss said he was encouraged by the number of persons who have collected their PVCs and urged “all registered voters who have not collected their PVCs to approach any of our Local Government Area offices and other designated collection centres nationwide to pick up their cards.”

While asserting that the card readers cannot be manipulated during the elections, he said INEC upgraded the card readers to “verify that the voter who presents the PVC is the actual owner of the Card by ensuring that the personal details on the Card Reader are consistent with the manual register for the polling unit.”

He explained that the card reader shall be used to authenticate the fingerprint of the voter as an additional confirmatory procedure.

If the fingerprint is not authenticated by the card reader but the PVC is confirmed as genuine and the voter’s personal details are consistent with the manual register, he/she shall be allowed to vote, Yakubu said.

“Cloned cards or cards that do not match the codes for a particular polling unit in which the voter is registered will be rejected by the Card Readers.”

Yakubu, however, debunked claims that the electronic card readers have been “enhanced to recapture voters’ fingerprints at polling units and automatically overwrite the biometric record on our database is untrue and should be disregarded.”

He added that “Registered voters should endeavour to collect their cards personally without which no person can vote on election day.”