TECHDIGEST – The proper administration of elections contributes immensely to the growth of democracy and civic development, Kashifu Inuwa, the Director General, National Information Technology Development Agency, (NITDA), has said.

Inuwa stated this in Abuja while delivering a paper at a hybrid symposium of the Nigeria eGovernment Summit 2022 themed: “Promoting eGovernment in Election Year for Improved Governance”.

Represented by Mr. Bernard Ewah, the acting Director, e-Government Development and Regulation Department, the DG NITDA said, “e-voting constitutes a very important aspect of ICT-enabled democratic governance. It generally aims at increasing participation of citizens in the electoral process and improving the outcomes of elections by addressing challenges associated with traditional voting practices”.

The NITDA boss explained that the e-voting technologies support one or more of the major phases of the electoral processes from the registration stage in the pre-voting phase to voting, balloting and verification to counting or tallying after voting.

READ ALSO: NITDA Intensifies Commitment To Create Formidable Digital Federal Civil Service

Inuwa asserted that e-governance has become an important mechanism in enhancing citizens’ participation, monitoring and evaluating government projects, ensuring government accountability and transparency as well as transferring information from one sector to another. “e-government has transformed Nigeria into a world-class economy and has restructured our electoral and other government processes” he added.

He said, “Participatory democracy is one of the major requirements for achieving e-governance, particularly, where majority of the citizenry is disenchanted with the electioneering or democratic processes or government. For successful adoption of e-voting and e-government, grassroots mobilization through e-democracy should be encouraged.”

He disclosed that NITDA has an e-Government Master Plan that promotes the use of e-government at sub-national and grassroots, adding that, so far, Plateau, Benue, Jigawa, Ogun and Nasarawa states have benefited from this initiative.

Inuwa, while asserting that a unique feature of e-Governance in an election year is the increasing use of private or non-state infrastructure, noted that a lot of Nigerians are utilising personal devices and private networks to disseminate information relating to the forthcoming general election.

“As such, the role of government is to ensure that non-state actors including individuals and private businesses act responsibly and uphold the common interest of the Nigerian sovereignty.”

NITDA boss further stated that the adoption of electronic voting and transmission of results has the potential to drastically reduce the prospect of electoral violence because as long as the polling centers are well secured, political thugs will have little or no influence over proceedings as the results could be transmitted within minutes to the collation center.

He concluded that as the 2023 general elections draws nearer, electronic voting would play a paramount role.

He said, “E-voting is becoming a standard in electoral processes around the world, and Nigeria is poised to improve its ranking on the global e-governance index as well as toe the line of countries like Estonia, Brazil, India, Philippines and Australia who have all introduced e-voting at various levels in their political systems.”

The post Adoption Of e-Voting Will Drastically Reduce Prospect Of Electoral Violence – DG NITDA appeared first on Tech Digest News.

TECHDIGEST – Technology has reshaped the world and increasingly motivated creative minds to explore different ways of improving social services.

Health, agriculture, power, and other critical industries have witnessed great improvement through the impact of technology which is rapidly transforming all facets of human existence into a digital world.

Considering the monumental impact of technology across several sectors of Nigeria’s economy, citizens are clamouring for the adoption of digital technology to further advance the nation’s democratic governance by using e-voting platforms.

Specifically, Nigerians are eagerly looking forward to speedy innovation of the electoral management system for greater efficiency, transparency, and elimination of the electoral fraud inherent in the extant manual system.

Nigeria’s democratic journey from 1999 is going through twists and turns due to the chaotic reaction that follows the outcome of every election by both winners and losers.

With an estimated population of about 200 million people spread across 774 local government areas, the country must digitalize the electoral process.  The registration of voters, casting of a ballot, collation and counting of the ballot, and transfer and release of results can be driven by technology to achieve free, transparent, and credible elections.

By doing so, the country would be leveraging technologies proudly developed by Nigerians for effective management of our electoral process thereby entrenching a robust and stable democratic ethos.

In the determination to implement its mandate, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has prioritized and promoted the use of technology by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) throughout the entire electoral process to guarantee well-organized and acceptable elections across the country.

Thus, it is important to fully focus on the deployment of innovative technologies in the electoral process. Our ability to develop innovative applications to solve many other problems can be extended to improve our electoral system through the power of digital technologies.

Electronic voting or e-voting tech advancement has often been advocated to protect the integrity of national electorate systems and deliver a free and fair election where there is absolute transparency and integrated voters’ achievement.

The use of electronic voting will speed up vote counting, cut the cost of paying staff to count votes manually, provide easier access to disabled persons to vote, and funding for elections will decrease.

E-voting is an electoral process that uses electronic means to enable the casting of ballots, counting of ballots, and transmission of the election result from polling centres to the central office of the electoral management body. It involves the use of electronic voting machines (EVMs) placed in polling stations to ensure a credible non-interference voting system.

It is in the light of the above, that the launch of Wardchat, a social network platform created to digitalize the Nigerian electoral community, is quite remarkable. This shows the unrelenting effort of Nigeria’s tech startups to bring improvement to the nation’s electoral process.

Wardchat is a social network digital application built by an indigenous startup company, Wardchat Nigeria that connects voters across wards, districts, and states within the country. The social network can support the electoral structures in 36 states and the FCT, 774 local government councils, 8802 wards, and over 176,000 polling units.

The application is packed with some unique, friendly, and easy-to-operate features to ensure seamless engagement for sharing content and knowledge among voters.

When the app undergoes future updates, users can access results from different polling units displayed on the dashboard. This innovative application would enhance the participation and engagement of voters in the electoral process.

Moreover, a digital community would empower the citizens to have a unified voice to debate, discuss and identify potential candidates that deserve to administer their common wealth. Just like citizen journalists, this app will breed citizen election advocates that will positively impact the electoral system.

The recent assent given to the Electoral Act Amendment Bill by President Muhammadu Buhari has paved the way for INEC to leverage digital technology for full automation of the electoral management system.

Buhari acknowledged that the Bill contained salient and praiseworthy provisions that could positively revolutionize elections in Nigeria through the introduction of new technological innovations.

READ ALSO: Twitter Uses ‘Poison Pill’ Tactics Against Elon Musk

Additionally, NITDA’s Strategic Roadmap and Action Plan (SRAP 2020-2024) provides the agency with a robust template to discover and encourage potential innovators and startups to work towards creating more solutions for the election management system.

This calls for collective synergy by NITDA and other stakeholders to give INEC all the support needed to help the election management organization conduct proper implementations of the e-voting system.

Besides revolutionizing the entire electoral/voting process, digitalization of the electoral management system would attract more startups to develop innovative market-reaching solutions capable of generating wealth and creating employment opportunities.

Certainly, innovative ideas to digitalize the electoral process in the country would continue to be appreciated by citizens as a guarantee that the winners in elections reflected the true choices of the electorate, and that their votes counted.

Zeenat O. Sambo writes from Wuye District, Abuja zeenatsambo@yahoo.com

The post E-Voting, Credible Elections, and National Prosperity appeared first on Tech Digest News.

TECHDIGEST – Governor Nasiru El-Rufai of Kaduna state has affirmed faith in electronic voting (eVoting) as the state, for the second time, deployed Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) to conduct its local government election that held over the weekend (Saturday).

The state pioneered the use of EVM in Nigeria in 2018 for the same local government election to set a precedence on the continent only after Kenya. At the national level, there is still a debate in Nigeria over the workability of eVoting.

Government needs to allay fears about electronic voting. Electronic and physical processes can run side by side as there is no complete guaranty against hacking, the governor told Channel TV today as guest of its Sunrise programme.

He said the use of technology in election cannot be downplayed and remains critical to promoting election integrity and boosting voter’s confidence.

“People are just concerned about transmission of results which is just one aspect,” said the governor while insisting that it was impossible to alter the election results across all critical components of eVoting.

In 2018, the state reworked its electoral laws, Kaduna State Independent Electoral Commission Law No. 10 of 2012 and other Matters Ancillary into the Kaduna State Independent Electoral Commission Law, 2018 to allow for electronic voting in the state.

Under Section 16 (3) of the state law, “the State Independent Electoral Commission shall have the power to determine the method by which voters may be verified and accredited for the purpose of casting their votes.”

It states that: “Such verification and voting shall be through the use of approved electronic devices, smart card reader and electronic voting machine.”

The election results for the 19 local governments are still coming in. But so far, the All-Progressives Congress (APC) has won in 15 local governments while the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has won in only one.

The post El-Rufai Affirms Faith In e-Voting As Kaduna Goes To Poll Using Electronic Voting Machines appeared first on Tech Digest News.

TECHDIGEST – The Chairman of Kaduna State Independent Electoral Commission (KADSIECOM), Dr. Saratu Binta Dikko-Audu says the EVM software has been upgraded to increase the credibility of the election process, making multiple voting impossible

History was made in 2018 when Kaduna State conducted Nigeria’s first and Africa’s second electronic voting elections, placing Nigeria among the league of countries that have used electronic voting system. Being the first to champion the use of such technology in Nigeria, Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State says he is poised to make another breakthrough by perfecting electronic voting come September 4th, 2021 when residents will go to the polls to elect their local government chairmen and councillors.

In 2018, Kaduna State Government substituted the Kaduna State Independent Electoral Commission Law No. 10 of 2012 and other Matters Ancillary with the Kaduna State Independent Electoral Commission Law, 2018 to pave way for electronic voting in the state. This single legislation has placed Nigeria among a league of few countries where e-voting is still practiced.

Daily Trust reports that section 16 (3) of the state law provides that the State Independent Electoral Commission shall have power to determine the method by which voters may be verified and accredited for the purpose of casting their votes. It states that “such verification and voting shall be through the use of approved electronic device, smart card reader and electronic voting machine.”

And so, Electronic Voting Machines popularly known as EVMs were used to champion this cause in 2018 albeit challenges and allegations of multiple voting. This time however, the state electoral body says it has perfected the machine to eliminate that particular challenge.

Speaking with Daily Trust, the Chairman Kaduna State Independent Electoral Commission (KADSIECOM), Dr. Saratu Binta Dikko-Audu, said the software has been upgraded to increase the credibility of the election process, adding that there will be no room for multiple voting.

“The major improvement we have done is that once you have voted once, the machine will capture the card, it can view the card, it won’t see the chip in the card but it will deny that card access to vote a second time, so this time around, we have cancelled multiple voting so whoever thinks he can take the machine and continue to vote over and over again, they won’t have that access,” she said.

Dr. Audu however said accreditation will still be done manually like it was done in 2018 using the voter register. She said, “our assistant presiding officer will check the voter register and check your voter card then mark you on the voter register and mark your thumb with an indelible ink so that if you approach another polling unit or the machine again, once that finger is marked, you won’t be allowed access to a voting machine.”

How the Electronic Voting Machine works

Ahead of the September 4th elections, the state electoral body says it intends to train about 18,000 adhoc staff comprising of presiding officers, assistant presiding officer, clacks, supervisory presiding officers, ward returning officers and local government returning officers for the smooth operation of the EVM and overall conduct of the election.

Daily Trust reports that in 2018, when the machine was first deployed, residents had voted after a presiding officer uses his authorization card to authorize access to the machine. However, with an upgraded software, Dr. Saratu Binta Dikko-Audu said the presiding officer will still authorize voters but each voter will vote using their own Persona Voters Card (PVCs) to open the platform then proceed to select the logos of the parties of their candidates of choice.

The EVM is a computerized box-like machine with a “Cancel and Ok” button that comes with an attaching ballot box. According to the SIECOM Chairman, it is easy to use even for people living in the villages, uneducated and older people. “It’s simpler than the ordinary analog phone that uses buttons. You don’t have to punch any button, all you need to do is to select the logo of the candidate you want to vote for, then press OK. That’s all, it’s very simple,” she said.

Giving a run-through of how the machine operates, Dr. Audu said the presiding officer will first set up the machine for voting which will be done in front of party agents, security agents and others who are present at the start of voting.

She said the machine first opens the page for the chairmanship election and the voter can select the logo of the party of his/her candidate by just a tap. “Then the screen will enlarge that logo and if that is the party of your candidate, then there are two buttons; ok and cancel, if you tap the ok button which is the green, as soon as you do that, your vote is captured.”

She said on the left side of the screen, a transparent screen will show the tally for which the logo of the party selected is being generated adding that the slip is cut and it drops into the ballot box which is at the bottom of the EVM, thus ending the voting process for the chairmanship. Our correspondent gathered that soon after the chairmanship vote is captured, the screen of the machine automatically goes to that of the Counsellorship page and the same process is repeated.

“If, however you make a mistake in selecting the logo of your candidate’s party, you can cancel. If you press the cancel button, your vote has not been recorded yet, your vote is only recorded when you press the ok button,” she said, adding that: “If you press the cancel button, it takes you back to the home page and then you can make proper selection and you will see the tally slip being generated before it drops into the ballot box.”

However, if for any reason an electorate feels the need to participate in only one category of the election, the chairman said all that is needed to be done was to press the cancel button twice. “It will ask you “are you sure you don’t want to vote,” then you press ok and you cancel the second time and that’s it, the machine shuts down and you can put your PVC as many times as you like, it will not open again until the presiding officer comes and another voter approaches the voting machine.”

Daily Trust reports that each EVM is powered by a battery that can last up to 16 hours but should there be any reason for the battery to fail, the KADSIECOM chairman, “we have generators deployed to every ward in the entire state so all you need to do is to call the presiding officer and he will get a generator within minutes and the election will continue.”

How results will be transmitted

Issue of transmission of election results, the main contention that has been in the front burner of Nigeria’s amended electoral act could still pose a challenge in Kaduna, especially around areas with poor network coverage. However, the state’s electoral body says that issue has tackled as the negotiations have been made with service providers to boost networks on election day.

The chairman said, “even if for any reason there is no network where the machine is and the booster does not get there, as soon as the machine gets into a network area, when network improves, it will transmit to the server.”

According to her, when the EVM captures votes, it records them in its memory and that data can be saved on a flash drive through a USB port. “On the machines itself, there are already three levels of security for your votes; there is the paper tally, there is a memory in the machine which you transmit into a flash drive and so whether you transmit or not, the data is already captured. We also have the issue of transmission to our server which is done by network,” she said.

Opposition party welcomes development

Ahead of the local government election, the main opposition, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state has expressed satisfaction with the use of technology to conduct the election but stressed that to ensure transparency, printouts should be made from all the machines at the beginning and end of voting and given to party delegates.

The PDP’s fears were however put to rest when the commission’s boss, Dr. Audu, said at the end of the election, the presiding officer will print out a summary of activities on the machine which captures all of the votes to be given to every party agent, security agents those who will wait till end of election.

“So, you can take your summaries and if there is any contention, before the machine leaves the polling unit, you can actually open it up, take out those tallies that were dropping into the box, sort them out and physically count them,” she said.

Speaking further, the PDP’s Secretary in Kaduna, Alhaji Ibrahim Wusono, said the use of the EVM is a welcome development but said this is only if problems encountered during the conduct of the 2018 Local Government Elections have been addressed.

“One of the main issues is where the machine allows for multiple voting and a single person can vote as much as he wants without the machine indicating which resulted to the rigging of the election by the ruling party,” he said.

Wusono however said if what was showcased at the stakeholders meeting organised by KADSIECOM, is truly genuine, the PDP was in support of the use of the machine.

Speaking earlier at a stakeholders’ sensitisation programme organised by KADSIECOM, Deputy Governor of Kaduna State, Dr. Hadiza Balarabe, said the state government has demonstrated its commitment to a viable and democratically elected local government system and that elections in Nigeria can be conducted electronically.

She said INEC was unable to loan the state its card readers for the 2018 local government elections but said with the EVM has now been reconfigured to integrate the card reader.

The post Kaduna Set For Another E-Voting Season appeared first on Tech Digest News.

TECH DIGEST – Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, Minister of Science and Technology, says Nigeria needs to reform its electoral system by adopting electronic voting to help eliminate errors caused by a human factor in compiling results.

This was contained in a statement released by Josephine Adamu, Press and Public Relations Officer of the ministry, on Tuesday in Abuja.

According to her, the minister said this during a facility visit to the Electronic Development Institute (ELDI) in Awka, Anambra on Monday.

The statement said Onu was positive that if the country reformed its electoral system and adopted e-voting, election malpractices, fraud and less credible results would be a thing of the past.

He said that with this in place, more Nigerians would be willing to participate in the nation’s electoral processes.

Onu said the nation’s democratic processes would experience tremendous improvement with these reforms.

“Democracy is like a living organism that grows like humans, animals and plants but for this to happen, we need electronic voting which shall reduce malpractices associated with human errors,” he said.

He noted that with the level of innovative work done at the ELDI, Nigeria would no longer need to import electronic products.

He said rather than import the products, they shall be produced in the country to satisfy local demand and the surplus would be exported.

He added that this would help improve the nation’s gross domestic product.

The minister said his ministry had teamed up with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to build voting machines with encouraging results.

He also said Nigeria had a population of over 200 million people and needed to be in a position to feed its population, reiterating that to achieve food security, mechanised farming must be embraced.

He enjoined investors to see farming as a lucrative business, while calling for more investment in large scale farming equipment such as tractors and harvesters, among others.

Earlier, the Managing Director of the Institute, Dr Patrick Okwu, commended the minister and his team for the vigour and resilience brought to the science and technology sector.

He said the annual science and technology expo had not only brought healthy competition among various research and academic institutions, but also brought to the limelight technological capacity of Nigerians.

Okwu appealed for more funding from the government to enable the institute to commercialise recently developed inventions and innovations.

[NAN]

The post Technology Minister Advocates For Electronic Voting System appeared first on Tech Digest News.

TECH DIGEST – On November 4, 2020, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) , Nigeria’s electoral body  announced that another round of voter registration will begin in the first quarter of 2021 and end six months before the general elections in 2023. Before this announcement, plans for switching to electronic voting had been revealed in September.

The need to control the spread of the coronavirus by limiting physical gatherings necessitated the announcement to ensure scheduled election timetables are not disrupted, as is the case with the elections in Edo and Ondo states.

Specifically, the e-voting process is to kickstart electronic balloting — the use of machines to cast votes at polling centres. For now, the Commission has the legal backing to only carry out e-balloting in some states.

Despite consistent calls from the National Assembly, the Nigerian Constitution hasn’t been amended to allow electronic transmission of election results.

It won’t be right to say e-voting is new to the electorate because some elements of the process are visible in the electoral system: biometric registration and accreditation, smart card readers for verification, a result viewing portal, electronic voting machines (EVMs), and real-time online transmission of voting results directly from voting machines.

However, they have only been used on a small scale — local government and gubernatorial elections — and expecting large-scale implementation seems like wishful thinking.

As documented by Techpoint Africa, it is safe to say that human manipulation is often involved in the process of ensuring the e-voting systems run smoothly. The first e-voting exercise carried out in the Kaduna State local government election in 2018 is a good case in point; it proved that e-voting could not be adopted for the 2019 general elections.

Two years on, the number of registered eligible voters keep increasing but the problems are yet to be resolved.

Basic concerns about e-voting yet to be addressed

Since no electoral process is perfect, advanced technologies are only introduced to keep malpractice to a bare minimum.

Apart from guaranteeing confidentiality, an effective e-voting system ensures that only eligible voters are allowed to vote and the votes cast reflect their choices.

Considering the existing infrastructure and the digital divide between citizens, the Commission faces an accessibility problem it might not be able to solve just yet. But this is only one of many concerns.

One could be forgiven for expecting the adoption of technology in the voting process to be accepted by all and sundry; however, this is not the case. Surprisingly, the president is yet to approve the Electoral Reform Bill that the Senate has been deliberating on for more than a year; the Bill will stop the prohibition of EVMs and similar technologies.

When amended, Section 52(2) of the 2010 Electoral Act will allow the Commission to adopt electronic voting or any other method of voting in any election it conducts as it may deem fit.

The president refused because he believed that being close to the general elections, there wouldn’t have been enough time to get legislative backing to supervise the process, and voters might have been confused.

While it is true that extensive electoral education is usually needed for large-scale adoption of such technology, it is surprising that close to the end of 2020, the Bill has not been revisited for approval in preparation for the 2023 general elections.

With the nation’s executive and legislative arms clearly indifferent about the adoption of e-voting, how easy would it be for the public to accept the disruption that could come with it when eventually permitted?

Considering the current disapproval of new technology in the Nigerian electoral process, mobile or online voting might not be realisable any time soon.

Although the INEC boss recently expressed concern about the inability of Nigerians in diaspora to carry out their civil responsibility, there doesn’t appear to be any plans to make that happen soon.

Even if these innovations haven’t solved the problem of democracy in developed countries like the US and France, it should be given a chance in Nigeria.

The post How Close Is Nigeria To Adopting A Proper e-voting System? appeared first on Tech Digest News.