Simultaneous accreditation, voting impacting positively on election process – INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says its pilot simultaneous accreditation and voting process is impacting positively on the conduct of elections in the country.

Mr Nick Dazang, the INEC Deputy Director of Voter Education, made this known in an interview with newsmen on Saturday in Abuja.

Dazang said that the commission started the simultaneous voting and accreditation process with the 80 court ordered re-run elections.

He said so far the commission had conducted more than 50 of those elections.

“What we have observed is that the process save time on election day as it allows people to vote and leave on time.

“The process also gives us time to sort out ourselves at the polling units before it is dark. You know that it is in the dark that bad things happen.

“If everything goes on fine and we closed by 4 p.m., what this means is that the results are likely to come in earlier than it used to be in the past,’’ Dazang said.

The deputy director also explained that the process encourage people to take part in the election process.

“In the past some of the people who come in the morning to do accreditation may never come back to vote. Now that the two processes are done at the same time, people are now encouraged to vote,” he said.

On Saturday’s FCT area council polls, Dazang said that the accreditation and voting process took place as planned.

He said the reports from the field also indicated that the deployed smart card readers functioned, though there were some challenges.

“We have some challenges from the report we got from the situation room but our technical team have intervened and corrected the challenges.

“I spoke with some of our field officers in Bwari, Kuje and Kwali, and we noticed some challenges.

“Particularly, in Bwari, we had a challenge with network for card readers that use Airtel network but we have been able to address the challenge,” he said.

Dazang added that the commission was yet to receive report of any incident in terms of violence and ballot box snatching at the time of the interview.

“We expect that as soon as the polls closed the various presiding officers will sort out the cast ballots and announce results at polling units as well bring them to collation centres,’’ Dazang said. (NAN)