The Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec) and the Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) have joined forces to computerize voting in Nigeria, which would give boost to democracy.
Both organizations had in November last year, held a retreat to brainstorm and fashion out an effective e-voting system that would allow for improved casting of vote and effective collation of election results, to put an end to unsavoury incidents witnessed in recent elections.
Prof. Charles Uwadia, president of NCS, who read the communiqué from the joint retreat between Inec and NCS, commended the electoral body for its commitment to improving the nation’s electoral process through ICT, which would by extension improve the well being of the citizens.
The retreat, he said, was held to examine the entire gamut of the electoral process and determine the role ICT can play, and then bring that to fruition.
Uwadia disclosed that at the end of the retreat, it was resolved that such problems as mass thumb printing of ballot papers, ballot stuffing, ballot box hijack, impersonation of voters, errors due to manual collation of results, multiple registration, among others associated with the current voting system; can be overcome with e-voting system.
According to him, “the retreat recognized that Inec has an existing communication backbone based on satellite communication technology, which network consists of a satellite gateway (control center), located at the Inec headquarters and terminals installed at remote locations (Inec state offices and all the local government areas of the federation).”
But he said some of the terminals at the remote locations had been vandalized, and so the retreat recommends the replacement of the redundant/inactive terminals with portable/mobile terminals and the deployment of additional terminals during periods of elections.
He said that it was recognized that the cost of the space segment on the network has huge financial implications, hence the retreat recommends that the electoral body should subscribe to the size of the space segment needed for its operational purposes during non-election years while the requirement should be scaled up during election year to meet the demands for the election results collation and dissemination.
Prof. Maurice Iwu, Inec chairman, represented by Engr. Emmanuel Akem, Inec’s director of ICT, reiterated that Inec and NCS’ partnership is geared towards harnessing the goods of ICT in the electoral process, adding that the Commission had done a lot in deploying ICT but needs to improve on what has been achieved.
The retreat recommends that Inec should explore the use of the GSM¬-Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) and General Pack Radio Service (GPRS) technologies to complement the existing light weight encrypted secure file socket transmission for election result transmission and collation.
It also recommends that when the systems for e-collation and e-dissemination of election results are fully implemented, the election results in Nigeria should under normal circumstances be published within the period of six hours after closing election polls in every part of the country.
The retreat identified machine failure, vote flipping, possibility of inaccurate transmission of election results, usability problems, as challenges associated with electronic voting system; while noting that these can be overcome with contemporary technologies.
It noted that electronic voting system offers the best available option to prevent election manipulation and to assure the integrity and sanctity of each vote that is cast, thereby recommending a system based on consensus protocol which will allow for three confirmatory evidences/witnesses/channels for each vote cast.
While recommending the distributed encryption technique for purposes of secured data transmission, the retreat re-emphasizes the importance of a comprehensive and accurate registered voters’ database - a critical national asset which must be well secured to provide the necessary platform for a reliable electoral system. This, the Inec needs to do in partnership with other relevant government agencies such as the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Nigerian Immigration Service, among others.
The retreat observed that the level of skilled IT professionals in Inec needs to be enhanced through continuous training, and that Management and personnel of the Commission need requisite technology training to ensure smooth electoral process.
It recognized the need for Inec to strategically embark on programmes aimed at ensuring that the electorate and the entire public believe in its systems, processes and procedures.
The retreat, according to Prof. Uwadia, recommends that any e-voting machine that Inec might consider for deployment for the electoral process in Nigeria must possess the ability to capture at least 3-forms of confirmatory evidence for each vote cast, interface for real-time/wireless transmission of data, facility for accurate authentication of voters’ information, facility that allows the blind and visually impaired to cast votes unassisted.
Others include that the equipment battery life must last for a minimum of ten hours, must be fool-proof, tamper-proof and weather-proof to perform under any condition, have provision for verifiable audit trail; have provision that allows voters to confirm that their votes have been recorded as cast, voice prompt that could be customized in any Nigerian dialect, provision for automatic and periodic uploading of election results while voting is in progress.
Asked if the country is going to witness proper e-voting in the 2011 presidential elections, Engr. Akem said that would depend on how soon the resolutions at the retreat would be implemented, while stressing on the need for the amendment of the Evidence Act by the National Assembly to accommodate e-voting
