The Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) has stated that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) used by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct the presidential and National Assembly elections achieved its goal.
According to the society, the BVAS device served its purpose during the election because it is an accreditation device designed to ensure that only accredited voters can vote in an election.
WITHIN NIGERIA reports that the society’s President, Professor Adesina Sodiya, explained that a close examination of the election reveals that, unlike in the past, there were no incidents when the commission used card readers.
The NCS boss acknowledged that the BVAS completed its accreditation work; however, the electoral umpire’s concern was the failure to transmit results live on its portal as promised.
Sodiya in an interview with The Punch submitted that;
Tech is good, but if you do not follow the right process, and do all the necessary things, you might not achieve your aim.
According to him;
If you examine the election, you will notice we are not discussing incidences of over-voting. Also, the device was able to remove the issue of using incidence forms. In the past, when we were using card readers, people that could not thumbprint had to fill out incidence forms. Politicians used incidence forms to do a lot of things.
One good thing about this year’s election has been accreditation. When we were using card readers, accreditation and voting could not happen simultaneously. First people would get accredited, then wait until they can vote. But during this election, voters could vote immediately after accreditation.
In that regard, BVAS achieved its aim. The issue we had with the election was with the transmission of results, i.e., from the polling unit to INEC’s result viewing portal.
Some of the polling officers and corps members that could not complete the transmission of results in their various polling units came to the LGA and they were trying to transmit those results. The issue was with the transmission of results.
The tech expert who said he was returning officer at one of the local government areas during the presidential election said the NCS tried to warn INEC before the elections.
He disclosed that the society;
Tried to meet with INEC before the elections. We were able to meet with INEC, but not with the chairman. We gave the commission about 16 recommendations on what they need to do towards the elections. After submitting our proposal to INEC, we did not hear from them again.
One of our proposals was to serve as technology observers. We asked to monitor how the tech will be used and see how we can assist in ensuring that BVAS and the transmission of results were done effectively and efficiently. But nothing was done before the elections.
Some of the things we mentioned in our proposal had to do with testing for efficiency, penetration testing of the system, vulnerability analysis, ensuring that the platform was robust and ensuring that they conduct trial elections.