Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Professor Mahmood Yakubu has stated that the Commission will not be deploying electronic voting for 2019, but will be using electronics in the collation and transmission of results. Professor Yakubu said among the 30 countries that participated in the just concluded conference, the deployment of technology in the conduct of elections has come to stay.
He made the disclosure during a media briefing after a 3-day international conference of Election Management Bodies (EMBs) of West and Southern African Development Commission (SADC) states in Abuja yesterday. “The brainstorming was to look at the adoption of technology in all the areas of electoral process and how to provide secure platform for the transmission of election results without hindrance,” he said.
“We are to deploy technology within our various legal framework within the regions; election is not just about technology, it is about the confidence of the people in the electoral process.” Yakubu said; “we are not deploying electronic voting for 2019, but we are doing electronic collating and transmission of results …elections is going beyond the capacity of electoral commission to manipulate.”
He stated that the essence of the conference was to enable mutually beneficial discussions and strategy, “it was to enable us share experience,” he added. In her own remarks, Advocate Notemba Tjipuena, Chairperson Electoral Commission of Namibia, who also doubles as the Chairperson Electoral Forum SADC, said Namibia being the first country to deploy technology in electoral process in Africa, was able to do so due to direct process of consultation to improve the j , efficiency of its electoral process.
