A pro-democracy group, YIAGA Africa, has said that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, should document and investigate all the challenges experienced with the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS machine during the Delta State bye-election as the Commission plans for state-wide deployment in Anambra during the governorship election.
The YIAGA Africa made the recommendations from its report on the Isoko South 1 State Constituency bye-election in Delta State and urged the INEC to investigate why the BVAS took longer than five minutes to accredit voters in some locations during the bye-election towards conducting a technology infrastructure assessment ahead of the deployment in Anambra State.
The civic hub revealed that in some polling units, voters were allowed to vote without verifying their Permanent Voter Cards, PVCs, while secrecy of the ballots was compromised as other voters could see how voters marked their ballots.
The group further advised the electoral umpire to consistently train its ad-hoc staff on how to use the BVAS to avert any form of capacity gap in the deployment of the system.
Ahead of the Anambra State election, YIAGA Africa called on the electoral umpire to commence early voter education and stakeholders engagement in the state on the new system and to improve transparency in the electoral process as well as a timely release of manual and guideline for election.
The civic hub also appealed to the National Assembly to accelerate the passage of the Electoral Amendment Bill that legalises the deployment of technology for accreditation, voting, and transmission of election results.