To avoid the flaws in the last general elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has promised to embark on electoral reforms ahead of the 2023 polls. While some stakeholders have advised the electoral umpire to consider adopting electronic voting, others believe the country is not ripe for it. What should INEC do? ADEBISI ONANUGA asks.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, has said the commission will start reforms ahead of the 2023 general elections. According to him, the commission will work with the ninth National Assembly to review and strengthen the electoral laws, including a review of the Electoral Act 2010.
INEC’s decision was no doubt informed by the lapses arising from the conduct of the 2019 elections. Contrary to expectations, the exercise was characterised by incidents, such as card reader machine failure to authenticate some registered voters, forcing INEC officials to resort to manual authentication.
There were reported cases of card reader theft, vote buying, ballot boxes stuffing, result sheets snatching, thuggery and violence.
There were also concerns about the procedures used for voters registration and their attendant consequences, which include disenfranchisement, fraud and insecurity, mismanagement and inaccuracy of results.
Added to these were allegations of importation of foreigners partaking in the polls, particularly in border states in the North ravaged by Boko Haram attacks.
According to the INEC boss, “there is so much of work to be done, but very little time available. As a process governed by law, the success of election in Nigeria depends, to a large extent, on the electoral legal framework and most importantly in ensuring adherence to the law.
“The tendency to delay electoral reforms particularly, the review of electoral framework until it is too close to the elections, leave the commission with little time to develop processes including regulations and guidelines, make required consultation with stakeholders, embark on effective voter education including sensitisation, train staff and organised deployment for the elections.”
Experiments with ballot systems
Nigeria has experimented with various balloting system since independence and these include the secret ballot system and the open secret ballot system which was a modifications of the secret ballot system.
The 1993 elections, adjudged the freest so far in the country, was conducted through the open ballot system during which voters queued behind the photograph of candidates of their choice.
However, the country was forced to revert to open secret ballot system because the open balloting exposed voters to intimidation and attacks by the opposition.
The country’s attempt to strengthen its electoral and balloting system further led to the development of Permanent Voters Card (PVC) and adoption of card reader machine, which were first used for the 2015 elections, following amendments to the Electoral Laws 2010.
PVC and card reader introduction were the reason for the reduction in multiple registration and inflation of voters’ register. It, in addition, prevented unregistered voters from using other persons’ card to vote as against what obtained in past elections.
On March 30, 2017, the Senate passed another amendment to the Electoral Act No. 6 2010 (Amendment) Bill 2017 into law which was seen as a step towards reforms designed to guarantee free, fair and credible elections.
The Act empowered INEC to adopt electronic voting in subsequent elections in Nigeria. Almost two years after, the country is yet to fully adopt the electronic voting system despite its many advantages.
Electronic Voting System
Electronic voting, also known as e-voting, ensures efficiency and trust in the voting system and if properly implemented, has the capacity to increase the security of the ballot and integrity of our elections and speed up the casting and counting of votes.
Since the late 1990s and early 2000s, electronic voting has become more popular because it reduces concern about transparency of elections.
Can e-voting be trusted?
E-voting received mixed reception across the world. While some countries have embraced it, others have discontinued its use for various reasons.
Countries that have declined or discontinued its use include The Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Kazakhstan and Finland, among others.
The Netherlands
From the late 1990s till 2007, voting machines were used extensively in elections. Most areas in the Netherlands used electronic voting in polling places. After security problems with the machines were widely publicized, they were banned in 2007.
On February 1, 2017 the Dutch government announced that all ballots in the 2017 general election would be counted by hand.
Norway
In June 2014, Norway ended trials of e-voting systems used in national and local elections. Experiments with voting through the net were carried out during elections in 2011 and 2013.
But the trials ended because of voters’ fears that their votes could become public, which they saw as a compromise of their democratic rights. In addition, voters were afraid that encryption system that would guard the privacy of their votes could be compromised by hackers?
Germany
Following a 2005 pilot study during national elections, wide public support and an unanimous decision by the German Senate launched a plan for the implementation of an optical scan voting system based on digital paper in the 2008 state elections of Hamburg.
But after public claims in September 2007 by the Fraktion der Grünen/GAL and the Chaos Computer Club that the system was vulnerable, the Federal Election Office (Bundeswahlamt) found in public surveys that public distrust of the system was evident.
Due to concerns over public confidence, plans for use of the new voting system were cancelled
In 2009, the German Federal Constitutional Court found that the inability to have meaningful public scrutiny meant that electronic voting was unconstitutional.
On November 16, 2011, Kuandyk Turgankulov, head of the Kazakh Central Election Commission, said use of the Sailau e-voting system would be discontinued because voters preferred paper, the political parties did not trust it, and the lack of funds required to update the system.
Finland
Finland tried e-voting in 2008. A review in 2016-17 concluded against internet voting on the ground that its risks outweighed its benefits.
France
A 2017 review concluded against introducing internet voting
Benefits of e-voting
Countries that have adopted e-voting, said it has enabled their people to trust election results because they see it as a process that is transparent, secure and reduces human error.
It is seen as a system that builds trust in the people because they are able to get official election results within hours, instead of weeks compared to what obtains in Nigeria.
It is also said the system has the capacity to improve voters’ education, registration and turnout during elections.
Such countries include: Brazil, Belgium, Romania, Namibia, Romania, Switzerland, among others.
Brazil
Electronic voting in Brazil was introduced in 1996, when the first tests were carried in the state of Santa Catarina. Since 2000, all Brazilian elections have been fully electronic. By the 2000 and 2002 elections more than 400,000 electronic voting machines were used nationwide in Brazil and the results were tallied electronically within minutes after the polls closed.
Belgium
Electronic voting in Belgium started in 1991. It is widely used in Belgium for general and municipal elections and has been since 1999. Electronic voting in Belgium has been based on two systems known as Jites and Digivote.
Both of these have been characterized as “indirect recording electronic voting systems” because the voting machine does not directly record and tabulate the vote, but instead, serves as a ballot marking device.
Both the Jites and Digivote systems record ballots on cardboard magnetic stripe cards. Voters deposit their voted ballots into a ballot box that incorporates a magnetic stripe reader to tabulate the vote.
In the event of a controversy, the cards can be recounted by machine.
Namibia
In 2014, Namibia became the first African nation to use electronic voting machines. Electronic voting machines (EVMs) used in the election were provided by Bharat Electronics Limited, an Indian state owned company.
Romania
Romania first implemented electronic voting systems in 2003, on a limited basis, to extend voting capabilities to soldiers and others serving in Iraq, and other theatres of war.
Switzerland
Several cantons (Geneva, Neuchâtel and Zürich) have developed Internet voting test projects to allow citizens to vote via the Internet.
On November 2, 2018, Swiss Post invited hackers from around the world to participate in a four-week public intrusion test, to take place in Spring 2019.
Is Nigeria ripe for e-voting?
Should Nigeria adopt e-voting? The question is sensitive and the issue has continued to attract diverse comments from people.
While some consider it long overdue, others call for caution in adopting the system.
A House of Representatives member, Douye Diri from Bayelsa State, in an interview with a news agency in Abuja, said electronic-voting would be a panacea to electoral challenges.
Diri, who represents Kolokuma, Okpokuma Constituency of Bayelsa, said part of Nigeria’s problem was the “manual way’’ of doing things.
According to him, “deployment of technology in the transmission of results straight from polling units by INEC will curb election thuggery, blood-letting and under-age voting.”
He said electronic voting would make elections acceptable to Nigerians and the international community, and commended INEC for the “positive drift towards technology’’.
What should be done, by lawyers
Senior lawyers, including former Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) President Dr Olisa Agbakoba (SAN), Dr Paul Ananaba (SAN), Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Lagos (UNILAG), Akoka, Lagos, Wahab Shittu and Senator Iyere Ihenyen, Lead Partner, Infusion Lawyers, shared their thoughts on the matter.
While Agbakoba, Ananaba and Shittu backed e-voting, Ihenyen said it was not yet time.
‘Amend Electoral Act to accommodate electronic voting’
Agbakoba backed electronic voting, saying it would help tackle fraud. He called for the unbundling of INEC to make it more effective. “Electronic voting is crucial to eliminate fraud. Unbundling INEC is vital to make it more efficient,” Agbakoba said.
Chief Ananaba said it was time that the country moved from card reader machines to full electronic voting (e-voting).
“We should now move to electronic voting so that we can stabilise and avoid all the troubles of ballot papers, ballot box snatching and all that,” he said.
Ananaba suggested that there should be amendment of the Electoral Act, “not the one that has been passed”. They should recall that one and review it, taking into consideration all that took place during the 2019 elections so that issues like inconclusive elections would be eliminated. “
He said when you have inconclusive election, you have to do re-run elections which, in his view, is “too expensive and poses a lot of danger to the electorate”.
According to him, e-voting should be adopted in good time, so that there would be time for conduct of mock elections to test the system.
Ananaba warned that the system should not be introduced close to election period to avoid hiccups.
He noted that elections are based on the number of persons on the voters register and when one is not accredited because one is not on the voters register or doesn’t have a Permanent Voters Card (PVC), one will never vote, but that “e-voting will change all that.”
The senior lawyer also argued that security agencies and other armed officials should be totally banned from going to election areas, “be it soldiers, air force or navy and what have you, except the Police, because they have no business with the elections.”
‘Establish Election Offences Commission, Election Offences Tribunals’
Ananaba suggested the establishment of an Election Offences Commission.
“The Election Offences Commission should have Election Offences Tribunals separate from Election Petition Tribunals. They would only try offences that occurred during elections. They would have jurisdiction over anybody whether Mr President, Governor or whoever because there would be no immunity before that tribunal”.
‘There should be a National Data Bank’
For e-voting to work, he suggested that there should be a National Data Bank, not just for election, but with input from the National Population Commission (NPC), National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) and National Office of Statistics.
“Once we have a national databank like the one from which we issue ID cards, we work with them to restore integrity into our electoral processes,” Ananaba added.
For Wahab Shittu, the security and integrity of our electoral process are critical to our development moving forward. His recommendations on areas of improvements in the electoral process are as follows:.
‘Strengthening the electoral legal framework’
According to the lawyer, the 1999 Constitution (as Amended) and the Electoral Act 2010 (as Amended) contain the essential elements of a sound legal framework for the conduct of elections in Nigeria.
In relation to this the Electoral commission proposed amendments made to the 2010 Electoral Act (as amended) by the Senate on 23rd October 2018 and the House of Representatives on 24th October 2018.
The suggestions consisted of how the procedural and substantial parts of the election will go. From how registration will be made and the use of Power to print and register voters.
INEC identified all the areas where improvements are needed in the Constitution and the Electoral Act and engaged the National Assembly.
Increased Engagement with Stakeholders
A free, fair and peaceful election is the most important and looked forward to part of an election. People need to realise that election is not the business of the INEC alone, citizens play important roles in enabling these to happen.
I’m various polling booths this year, a lot of citizens sat with the electoral team and counted the votes with them, to ensure that no form of fraud is committed. If this form of commitment and passion is shown by many members of the Nation, results of elections have a higher chance of being free, fair and peaceful.
Amending electoral laws
Shittu remarked that from his observation, a lot has to be done to address management challenges in terms of logistics including deployment of sensitive materials ahead of elections. This may require amending our electoral laws to allow lNEC outsource logistics and other details to competent private sector players who could deliver effectiveness and efficiency.
‘Strengthening financial autonomy of the Commission’
To a large extent, effectiveness of electoral processes is conditional on availability of financial resources to deliver efficient services consistent with international minimum benchmarks and global best practices. Electoral processes cannot be effective if an EMB is starved of funds and/or has to go cap in hand to an incumbent executive begging for funds before it can conduct an election.
The financial autonomy of INEC needs to be strengthened. It should continue to be on first line charge and have all its funds released through the statutory transfer fund as appropriated by the National Assembly. Subjecting an electoral Commission to the so-called single treasury account, I believe, is a recipe for disaster.
Technology Adaptation for Transparency and Effectiveness
There is no doubt that increasing use of adaptable technology in carefully selected areas goes a long way to ensure transparency and effectiveness of the electoral processes. For example, use of technology for biometric registration of voters, for the issuance of smart permanent voters card (PVCs) to voters and for voter verification and authentication using the smart card reader, have all added value to the integrity of the 2015 general elections.
So has the initiative to scan and upload on a database all result sheets for all the elections, which were made accessible to all for some months after the elections. Thus, use of technology in general and ICT in particular has helped to address persistent challenges, such as multiple voting, inflation of the register and many other fraudulent activities, associated with the conduct of elections in Nigeria in the past.
He noted that there are many challenges in the use of technology, which have to be constantly reviewed and addressed if the use of technology is to have the desired effect. According to him, “Lack or inadequacy of original equipment manufacturers in our environment, and therefore, lack of local content, is a major challenge. Procurement has to be made abroad, with all the associated constraints of using vendors, licensing of software, repairs and spare parts replacement”.
Another challenge, he observed, has to do with security of data, whether in storage or while being transmitted via the Internet. Yet another has to do with matters of training of staff to acquire the requisite competencies for technology use.
INEC , he said, has had to grapple with all these in past five years or so, as it deployed technology in the electoral process leading to the 2015 general elections.
No doubt, in the years to come, as we strive to consolidate the discernable gains of, for example, the use of PVCs and Card Readers, in the Nigerian electoral processes, a lot of attention needs to be focused on addressing these challenges.
Shittu stressed that it is important that INEC decentralises its operations in certain core areas for efficiency and forestall postponements of elections. Sensitive materials may be kept in protective outlets and banks closer to the venue of elections.
He said experience has shown that resources of the country are stretched to unimaginable limits during elections held at once. This may have exposed the need for staggered elections for close monitoring and efficiency.
‘How to ensure security and integrity of elections’
Ihenyen said the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended) which governs election matters in the country needs to be reviewed. We need to comprehensively fix pre-election, election, and post-election matters. First, one aspect of pre-election that we need to pay more attention to is continuous voter registration and voter education.
Section 9(1) of the Electoral Act which requires INEC to compile, maintain, and update the National Register of Voters on a continuous basis needs to be amended to specifically provide a timetable within which INEC must conduct registration processes for the continuous registration of voters. If this is not done, we may continue to have a situation whereby INEC exercises full discretion regarding when to appoint officers for the purpose of updating the voter register. Related to this is the need to introduce amendments that address voter-card collection. This has become a serious issue in the country as millions of voters have failed, neglected, or refused to collect their voters cards for various reasons. One of the major reasons is the distance between the electorate’s current residence and the location of the collection venue.
Second, regarding the election proper, the provisions of the Electoral Act which provide rules and regulations for free and fair elections should be amended to provide for prosecutorial procedures. Sections 124, 129, 130, and 131 prohibit and punish bribery and conspiracy, offences on election day, undue influence, and threatening respectively.
He regretted that every election year, electoral offences have become the evils witnessed in our elections.
“Yet, are we prosecuting any electorate, candidate, or political-party chieftain or agent for these electoral offences? Largely, the answer is NO. And this is why we will keep having the security and integrity issues we have in our election
“Until the relevant sections stipulate whose duty it is to take on these electoral offences and within which period to do so, the Electoral Act will remain a toothless bulldog in this regard”, he said.
‘Post-Election Issues’
He noted that the relevant provisions of the Electoral Act need to be amended to address post-election issues.
He said the Electoral Act should be amended to stipulate definite statutory modes of proving the grounds of election petitions; make it mandatory for INEC to provide electoral materials a petitioner may require to prosecute an election petition; re-emphasize that substantial justice prevails over technical justice; and the burden of proof in election cases, particularly on allegations of electoral violence, falsification of results, rigging, undue influence, and other malpractices should not be so herculean for a petitioner. If at all, the Electoral Act should mandate all actors, especially INEC, to cooperate with the petitioner regarding access to direct evidence as documentary evidence in election cases are a pain in the neck for petitioners.
‘Nigeria not ready for Electronic voting’
According to Ihenyen, it was not yet time for Nigeria to adopt e-voting.
He said: “While I believe that electronic voting will help Nigeria solve many of its electoral challenges, I do not agree that the introduction of electronic voting is the way to go, at least not at this time.
Ihenyen argued that while it is true that casting votes and counting them have become very big issues in the country’s electoral system over the years, but the question is whether Nigeria is ready for electronic voting.
“First, data infrastructure is critical to a successful electronic voting system, but Nigeria is not quite ready yet. Electronic voting is highly reliant on not only accurate data, but also trusted and efficient data collection, data processing, data management, and data sharing or transfer. The electronic voting system is more effective where digitization of citizen identity has been reasonably achieved. Not only has Nigeria largely failed to digitize the identity of its over 196 million citizens, but failed to integrate the massive citizen data she is sitting on so far. So if we are going to adopt electronic voting system any soon, we must get our citizen identity data right. The few countries that have tried the electronic voting system including Brazil, Estonia, Germany, and India, all had citizen identity reasonably digitized.
“Second, assuming Nigeria adopts a remote e-voting system via the Internet, which is also called i-voting, does the country have enough broadband penetration to ensure that every citizen of this country from anywhere in Nigeria and the world has easy access to the Internet to exercise franchise? The answer is NO. So except INEC deploys a hybrid voting system whereby the present card-reader system and the electronic system are deployed, we may be creating more problems than providing solutions.
“Or INEC may go with electronic voting machines located at polling stations or any designated location supervised by INEC officers or authorized representatives. We must avoid disenfranchisement at all costs. Related to this is the unavoidable consequence of giving undue advantage to political parties whose voters are more technologically savvy or have more access to the Internet or electronic voting platforms than other voters. Technology should help us expand the voter base regardless of social, economic, or geographical considerations, not limit it.
‘Challenges of electronic voting’
“Electronic voting comes with its own risks. Perhaps, the risks involved in electronic voting comes at the speed of light. One of the key issues with electronic voting is the openness of the system to public examination. If the electronic voting system does not provide a means by which an independent person can verify votes without INEC having to authorize it, the risk of rigging is high. The electronic system must create an authenticatable paper record of votes cast. This should also accommodate a chain of controllers who have custody to the votes cast. This implies some level of decentralisation which electoral bodies such as INEC may not find easy to work with because of its centralized levels of power and control.
“No doubt, technological innovations have positively impacted on the condition of elections in Nigeria since 2003. But with the introduction of Optical Magnetic Recognition (OMR) in the 2003 general elections to the Direct Data Capture Machines (DDCM) in the 2007 general elections, a new Register of Voters in the 2011 general elections, the improved Automated Fingerprints Identification System (AFIS) in the 2015 general elections, including voter accreditation with the aid of Voters Identification System (IVAS) popularly called the Smart Card Reader (SCR), election disputes have not been reduced. Every election year, election petitions keep coming in high numbers. In fact, technology seems to have only succeeded in making the petitioner’s burden of proof even tougher as tendering both documentary and computer evidence are herculean for petitioners, leading to unsuccessful petitions.
“So I don’t see electronic voting reducing election disputes. It may in fact increase it, considering how powerful, influential, and desperate most incumbents are. Indeed, this immense influence of the incumbents has casted doubts on the independence of INEC over the years.
“From the point of view of security, integrity, and sovereignty, we need to also appreciate the risks involved in deploying electronic voting machines or technologies manufactured by private companies or manufacturers. These companies or manufacturers will most likely be foreigners. How do we secure the system from the developers, to ensuring that there is no undue access or manipulation by external influences. In the 4th Industrial Age, we can’t be so naive. So if INEC is looking to explore the possibilities of deploying electronic voting in Nigeria, this is the time to start planning for that. We can’t risk importing such technology from China, Russia, or even the US. We must look inwards.
‘E-Voting not panacea to security of election results’
“With technology, there may be no 100% guarantee of security (even if INEC were to deploy Blockchain technology for elections, assuming it is feasible to do so considering the large number involved). But one of the ways the security of electronic system can be improved is setting standards and requirements that will address accuracy, accessibility, automation, auditability, integrity and privacy.
“Electronic voting is automation which boosts trust because it enables an auditable, secure, and transparent process. Automation also means it’s faster as people can get official election results within hours. Apart from automation, an electronic voting system must provide auditability. A number of electronic voting system deploy a voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT). Every time a vote is registered electronically, the voting machine prints a paper receipt. This makes recounts and comparisons easy.
“To introduce electronic voting in Nigeria, the National Assembly may need to amend the Electoral Act to provide for a comprehensive regulation of electronic voting in Nigeria. This regulation must be thorough, learning from the mistakes other countries before us may have made. If we don’t want to end up like Germany and Netherlands who stopped the electronic voting system after getting their hands burnt, we must do our homework. And the time to do that is now. Not 2023.”