INEC Arrives At Solution To Card Reader Usage

The Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC) said it has done everything to protect its
card readers from being hacked or jammed on
Election Day.
Mr Chidi Nwafor, the Director of Information and
Communication Technology (ICT), INEC, stated this
at a Situation Room Dialogue with INEC officials in
on Wednesday in Abuja.
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The dialogue was organized by the Nigeria Civil
Society Situation Room, with support from the
British Department for International Development
(DFID).
Nwafor said the meeting became necessary,
following insinuations by some people that there
were plans to jam or hack its server or card readers.
“I want to assure you that we have done everything
possible in terms of security issues; in terms of
when it was being designed, we have considered a
lot of things.
“In any technology, we bring out issues as an
engineer, but you must also know that this
equipment you are bringing is for electoral process.
“Therefore, for you to make a design, you must also
look at full electoral process of voting.
“Where are the ways this thing can be hacked?
Where are the ways this equipment can be used in a
negative ways? All these we have considered.
Nwafor added that the commission’s Permanent
Voter Cards (PVCs) and card readers would help to
eliminate election frauds in the forthcoming general
elections.
He identified some of the election fraud in the
country to include buying of votes, voter
impersonation, ballot stuffing, mis-recording of vote
and multiple voting.
“Multiple voting should be a thing of the past and
the card reader would ensure one man: one vote,’’
he said.
He, however, added that curbing election fraud was
not just the duty of INEC but all stakeholders.
Also speaking, INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega,
expressed the commission’s confidence in its card
readers, adding that it had procured adequate
functional card readers needed for the conduct of
the elections.
Jega said that the commission had taken adequate
measures to ensure that the card readers do not
fail, stating that in the mock test conducted, and no
card reader failed.
“We have about 150,000 voting points, because we
broke some of the large polling units into voting
points.
“We have procured 182,000 card readers, of all of
these, we have only about 400 that were `dead on
arrival’ – factory faults.
“They have been brought and they cannot boot, so
we are comfortable about the integrity of the card
readers itself and all the public demonstrations and
test we have done, no card reader has failed.
“In addition we already have extra battery in case
there is a problem with the charge of batteries or
lack of functionality of the battery. “
Jega added that because the country would be
holding three elections in one day, it had to adopt
measures to ensure that the ballot papers were
properly placed in correct ballot boxes.
“Because we are doing three elections on March 28
and then two set on April 11, we are using three
ballot boxes and three and two ballot boxes for
March 28 and April 11 respectively.
“We have done colour coding just to make it easier
to avoid mistake in placing the ballot papers in the
appropriate ballot boxes,’’ he added.
He said the commission had agreed to open each of
the ballot boxes and sort out wrongly placed ballot
papers after election in the presence of all agents
and observers before counting.
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According to him, the commission would continue
with its sensitization program on the need for
people to place their cast votes in the appropriate
boxes. (NAN)
The pressing issue in Nigeria regarding the use of
Permanent Voters Card (PVCs) for the forthcoming
elections, INEC have been given the go ahead by
justice Abdulkadir Abdul-Kafarati of the Federal High
Court in Abuja.