The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it will not give room for voting for voters who fail it’s new two factor authentication in the forth coming Gubernatorial Election in Anambra State.
This was made known by the chairman of the commission in its quarterly meeting with political parties which took place in Abuja on Monday, He said that the new device called the Z-pad, which has been integrated into the IVED currently used for voter registration, will help tackle the fear of identity theft during elections, Prof. Yakubu said the new device would be deployed in the forthcoming governorship election in Anambra State.
Before the introduction of the Z-pad, the commission permitted the use of incident form to cover those whose fingerprints are not authenticated by the Smart Card Reader (SCR) and this gave room for maneuvering of votes by fraudulent politicians, Prof. Yakubu then went ahead and declared with this new device ” No Authentication No Voting”
He went further to explain that on Election Day, the same device will be used for the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) which does both fingerprint and facial accreditation and where the both fails the individual will not be allowed to vote.
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“We believe that this multi-layer process will eliminate the possibility of voting by identity theft using another person’s PVC. Where the voter fails both the fingerprint and facial authentication, he/she will not be allowed to vote. In other words, no electronic authentication, no voting.
“We are convinced that the new machine is robust enough to further guarantee the credibility of voter authentication and transparent management of results during elections.”
Mr Yakubu said the commission would carry out a pilot exercise using the new device in Delta State during the Isoko South 1 State Assembly constituency bye-election holding on Saturday after which it would be deployed in the November 6 governorship poll in Anambra State.
The INEC chairman also announced the suspension of physical registration of voters in Anambra State, a move he said is in compliance with Section 9(5) of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended) which mandates 60 days gap interval between such an exercise and an election day.
