The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, on Wednesday, said raw election result figures will not be transmitted electronically to avoid hacking.
Nigeria is set to hold its presidential and National Assembly polls on February 25, 2023.
Speaking at a meeting with leaders of foreign election observers, Yakubu said raw election figures will not be transmitted electronically, adding that the presiding officers would be required to use the BVAS to snap the election results on the results sheet from each polling unit, and upload them on INEC Result Viewing Portal for Nigerians to see.
The INEC chairman said the decision not to transmit raw figures electronically was taken to avoid hacking as raw figures were more susceptible to hacking.
Yakubu explained, “The BVAS confirms that the cards issued by the commission and presented by the voter is genuine and the voter is authenticated using the fingerprint and where it failed, the facial. Where both fail, the voter can’t vote. That is a matter of law.
“After the process is completed at the polling unit, the image of the polling unit result will be taken by the BVAS and uploaded into what we call the INEC Result Viewing Portal where citizens can see polling unit level results as the processes are completed at polling unit level.
“The difference between what Kenya did in 2015 and what we are doing is that we are not transmitting raw figures for collation. In fact, the law does not allow for electronic collation of results. So, we don’t transmit raw figures because raw figures transmitted online are more susceptible to hacking while images of a document are not susceptible to hacking.”
He assured that the BVAS would perform well on Election Day.
Yakubu added, “Like every new technology, initially, it will present its own challenges. In the last elections in Osun and Ekiti, the BVAS performed well.
“But this is the first time that we are deploying the machine for national election, we conducted a mock accreditation exercise and the exercise had some issues we have addressed.
“So, we are confident that on Saturday, the machines will work and perform optimally.”
