The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has approved the introduction of a new step to further strengthen its election management process and enhance transparency of the system.
This is as the Commission noted, that result management has remained a major source of mistrust in Nigeria’s electoral process, as citizens are often concerned, and sometimes rightly so, that results may not always be consistent with votes cast.
In a statement on Thursday, the National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye Esq., disclosed that INEC is determined to address any source of this concern through enhancing the level of transparency in the conduct of elections, more so in the process of releasing results of elections.
Okoye, added that to further strengthen the transparency in the election result management system, the Commission has decided to introduce a dedicated public portal— the INEC RESULT VIEWING (IReV), that will enable Nigerians to view Polling Unit results real time as the voting ends on Election Day.
According to him, “It is a fundamental principle of democracy that in elections, votes are not only correctly counted, but that they also count.
“Consistent with its commitment to transparency in election management, the Commission introduced the Form EC60E, which is a poster version of the primary result sheet, the Form EC8A. This replica of the polling unit result is pasted at the Polling Unit after votes are counted, recorded and announced. This poster, now widely known as the “People’s Form EC8A”, has increased transparency in result management.
“The form enables the citizens to photograph the results and project the outcome of elections, even before the final results are announced. Unfortunately, this has also led to abuses, as unofficial and at times false results are known to have been circulated, particularly via social media, leading to tension and casting aspersions on the final outcome of elections”, he said.
The Commission emphasized that this does not constitute electronic collation of results, adding that the collation of election results shall remain as provided for by law, a manual process of completion of relevant result sheets and their upwards collation until the final results are determined.
This innovation is expected to commence from the Nasarawa Central State Constituency bye-election in Nasarawa State scheduled for Saturday 8th August 2020. Thereafter, it will be extended to the Edo and Ondo Governorship elections as well as all subsequent elections.
The Commission expressed hopes that this innovation would improve the transparency in election result management and therefore further consolidate public confidence in the electoral process.
The Commission disclosed that the Nasarawa Central State Constituency election Result Sheet can be accessed thus:
Visit https://inecelectionresults.com
>Click on “Create new Account?”
>Fill in your details in the form provided and click on “Sign in”
>Provide your State of Origin and click on “Continue”
>An account activation email is sent to the email address provided in the form
>Check your email and correctly copy out the activation code which will be entered into the textbox provided on the portal
>Click on “Activate”
>This logs you into the portal and you can select the Election whose PU results you are interested in viewing
>You can use the filter buttons to make the search easier.
>Please remember to log out of the portal after use.
The Commission appealed to the public to make judicious use of this facility as it looks forward to continuing to work with stakeholders to improve the quality of electoral services in our country.
