BVAS Can’t Be Hacked, Votes Will Count- INEC Chair Assures

The Chairman of the Independent National Elec­toral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, has assured that the Bimodal Voter Registration System (BVAS) is highly secured, intact and cannot be compro­mised or hacked into by cybercriminals.

 

NewsOnline reports that Mahood Yakubu said votes cast by registered voters who would be present at their polling units on the election day, would decide who wins elections and not rigging.

 

Professor Mahmood said this on Thursday while presenting a paper on the topic, ‘INEC and the Challenges of ICT- The Way Forward’.

 

Mahmood said, “As with every aspect of our nation­al lives, adopting technologies into the electoral process is always met with challenges.

 

“One major challenge was the lack of a clear-cut legal framework supporting the de­ployment of technology by the commission, especially in the accreditation of voters and the voting process.

 

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“The deployment of the smart card readers in 2015 and its use was faced with various challenges such as resistance to use in some isolated instances, snatching and destruction of devices, attempts to manipu­late the use of the devices, and most prominently various judi­cial pronouncements on the le­gality of its use.”

 

Dr. Law­rence Bayode, Director, ICT, who represented the INEC national chairman said the commission is prepared and committed to delivering free and fair elections. He, however, lamented that misinformation and disinformation being circulated on social media platforms are putting the commission in bad light.

 

INEC chairman added that the traditional media have also helped in circulating fake and false news through their morning and political programmes. INEC said the practice of picking unverified content from social media for discussion of traditional media should be discouraged by all.

 

Yakubu said, “an­other very disturbing trend is the misinformation and disin­formation on technological de­ployments by the commission in the social media space and some media houses picking up news bulletins from social media platforms to discuss on their morning shows and political programmes without reaching out to the commission for its stance on such issues.

 

The commission maintained that elections will count. Bayode added that voters must go to their polling units with their PVCs to cast their votes for their choice candidates on the election days. He added no voter will be able to cast vote without PVC.

 

“One of such is the recent vi­ral assumptions that PVC is not required to vote on election day.
“Let me reiterate the com­mission’s stance that section 47(1) of the Electoral Act 2022 clearly states that, ‘A person in­tending to vote in an election shall present himself with his voter’s card to a presiding officer for accreditation at the polling unit in the constituen­cy in which his name is regis­tered’. Law­rence Bayode said.