INEC plans three-week suspension of online voter registration

The Independent National Electoral Commission on Wednesday has said it is planning to suspend the online Continuous Voter Registration for three weeks.

The commission hinged the decision on the need to allow those who had registered online to complete their registration physically at designated centres before the suspension of the exercise on June 30, 2022.

The INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, said this during an interactive session with civil society organisations in Abuja.

According to him, the CVR suspension scheduled to begin from May 30 would enable the clean-up of registration data, printing of Permanent Voters Cards and compilation of registers ahead of the 2023 general elections.

He said INEC would finalise the regulations and guidelines for the implementation of the new Electoral Act, 2022 which would guide the conduct of the forthcoming Ekiti and Osun governorship elections as well as the 2023 polls.

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Yakubu said, “For the first time, the commission deployed the Automated Biometric Identification System, a comprehensive and robust system involving not just fingerprint identification but also facial biometric recognition.

“On election technology, we have reviewed the functionality of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System following the complaints received after the recent Area Council elections in the Federal Capital Territory which was held on February 12, 2022.

“Two weeks later, the commission conducted six bye-elections in four states across four geo-political zones of the country covering rural, sub-urban and urban areas. It was the most extensive geo-political deployment of the BVAS since it was pioneered in the Isoko South I Constituency bye-election in Delta State in June last year. In these bye-elections, the BVAS functioned optimally as attested to by the reports of your field observers accredited by the commission.”

The INEC chairman observed that lessons learnt from the recent bye-elections have been taken into consideration as the commission prepares for the forthcoming Ekiti and Osun States governorship elections.

“The commission has just finished the configuration of the BVAS for the Ekiti State governorship election. We will also undertake a mock voter accreditation exercise in Ekiti State ahead of the main election on June 18, 2022, the details of which will be announced shortly,” Yakubu said.