The Nigerian Senate has rejected a proposed amendment to Clause 60, Subsection 3, of the Electoral Amendment Bill that sought to make the electronic transmission of election results compulsory.
The rejected amendment would have mandated presiding officers of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to transmit election results electronically from each polling unit to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IREV) in real time, after Form EC8A had been signed and stamped by the presiding officer and countersigned by party agents.
Following deliberations, the Senate instead adopted the existing provision contained in the Electoral Act. The retained clause states that “the presiding officer shall transfer the results, including the total number of accredited voters and the results of the ballot, in a manner as prescribed by the Commission.”
With this decision, the Senate leaves the mode of results transmission to INEC’s discretion, rather than imposing a compulsory electronic process in the law.
The move has implications for ongoing debates around election transparency, the role of technology in Nigeria’s electoral process, and INEC’s operational independence in determining how results are collated and transmitted.
