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.

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TECH DIGEST – Technology as the most pervasive human phenomenon has disrupted and transformed our daily behaviour – how we play, communicate and conduct business transactions. It has impacted on the most ordinary tasks and created extraordinary possibilities with limitless opportunities for continuous expansion.

Through the power of technology, residents in one corner of the world are able to stream classes/lectures delivered from distant continents beyond their immediate locations. Business transactions are now conducted using digital applications without any physical contact between the parties involved.

Everyday consumers and citizens across the globe are experiencing the ever-evolving and revolutionary attributes of innovative technologies. People have no choice but to constantly adopt and adapt to the growing catalogue of intelligent applications/tools that offer novel, easy and efficient ways of doing things for both individuals and corporate organisations.

Today, we are surrounded by an intense struggle for dominance between technology and the human imagination. And technology has clearly asserted itself as the dominant global power with the unlimited potential to remodel our planet and even beyond.

Foremost economies are largely driven by technology, from their farms, extractive environments, to manufacturing, commerce and other socio-economic sectors. The world, and its population, is increasingly relying on technology for everyday activities.

However, the scale of technological advances for elections and related processes is very low, if not dismal. The technological revolution might have overlooked the electoral terrain, such that paper-based voting (the ballot paper) remains the standard process of casting the ballot in most countries.
While several nations have introduced new technologies into their electoral processes, many others are wary of using electronic means owing to concerns over issues of integrity and the legitimacy of electronic voting.

Most countries in the latter category are cautiously embracing electronic voting only to the extent of the e-voter registration.

For these countries, the possibility of employing technologies for ballot casting, counting, and the transmission of election results is still unlikely.

The electronic voting system, also called e-voting, allows for the use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) placed in polling stations to facilitate the process of ballot casting and counting. E-voting utilises either the remote or non-remote system and all tabulations of election results are automated.

The EVM eliminates the use of the ballot paper as the direct-recording machine enables votes to be counted and tallied electronically. It involves the use of computers or computerised equipment (digital technologies) to cast ballots, record the ballot choices, while also counting and providing the results of elections.

Although it is viewed as a tool for enhancing efficiency, trust, security, ease of voting and the speed of processing of results, the electronic voting system requires proper planning and implementation, otherwise it can undermine the electoral process.

Also, e-voting requires extensive funding for the procurement of high grade, secure and trustworthy digital infrastructure to protect the system from any external cyber-attack or unauthorised access.

Great Britain, Brazil, Estonia, France, Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium and the United States of America are among countries that have successfully incorporated e-voting into their electoral systems.

In 2014, Namibia became the first African nation to adopt electronic voting. Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa and Nigeria are among the few African nations equally considering plans to adopt technology in their electoral processes.

In Nigeria, technology has practically transformed activities in all sectors with the exception of the political terrain (the electoral sector), which is yet to fully embrace the technological revolution.
Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies would serve as foundation to rely on for the enthronement of efficiency, integrity and trust in our electoral system.

The increasing reliance on technology is a shift that is here to stay – from the use of PCs and smart phones for e-commerce, e-banking, e-learning (edutech), e-healthcare, e-cab hailing services, to using digital applications for agricultural activities and other sundry endeavours.

But the electoral process is the only area that is yet to feel the impact of technology, as no effort is being exerted in this direction.

This sector remains a stark contrast to the reality of the escalating technological advances that are rapidly transforming human activities in other sectors of our national life.

Certainly, the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics in Abuja provides a dynamic environment for Nigeria’s technology community to undertake the rigorous search for innovative technologies to address our numerous electoral challenges.

Thus, this piece is a humble plea for the tech community to join other stakeholders to galvanise the National Assembly for the speedy passage of the Electoral Reform Bill to make electronic voting a reality in Nigeria.

With the legislation in place, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) would be empowered to deploy e-voting from ballot casting and counting, to the tracking of ballots, and the transmission of ballots to a central collation centre for announcement of election results.

Tech startups, innovators and enthusiasts need to challenge themselves through collaborative efforts to develop, test and implement innovative digital programmes to accomplish reforms in Nigeria’s electoral space.

To this end, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) should explore all opportunities provided by the Act establishing the agency to explore all human and material resources available in the ICT sector to leverage technology for efficiency in election management.

This will lead to a fulfillment of the core mandate of harnessing information technology resources for the promotion of efficient national development.
Certainly, the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics in Abuja provides a dynamic environment for Nigeria’s technology community to undertake the rigorous search for innovative technologies to address our numerous electoral challenges.

The Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy should, as a matter of national emergency, formulate relevant policies to give direction to and oversee the proper incorporation of trusted and secure technologies into the country’s electoral reform project.

Until we try out the prospect of technology in our electoral system, we may never appreciate Nigeria’s potential for growth and capacity to be counted as a force to reckon with in the global digital economy.

In the meantime, the country looks up to the tech community to make the difference by developing innovative disruptions that reflect the new normal in our electoral management system.

Inyene Ibanga is Managing Editor, Techdigest.ng and writes from Wuye District, Abuja.

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