The National Assembly stipulates that usage of functional card readers for accreditation of voters will be made compulsory in future elections. This is likely to come into action if the new electoral Act is assented to by the President.
The Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Electoral Matters, Aishatu Jibril Dukku gave this insight into the ongoing legislation at a joint public hearing held on the two different bills being worked upon for conduct of future elections in the country, noting that the new provisions are contained in the amendments being made on section 49 of the 2010 Electoral Act.
The card reader, an electronic device for accrediting eligible voters at each of the polling units before voting, was introduced in 2015 elections but not made compulsory for election to take place in the event of malfunctioning.
The 2010 Electoral Act as amended in 2015 gave room for the usage of manual voters registers after filling of index form.
According to Dukku, a new subsection ( 3) is introduced, which provides thus: “where a smart card reader deployed for accreditation of voters fails to function in any unit and a fresh card reader is not deployed, the election in that unit shall be cancelled and another election shall be scheduled within 24 hours.”
She added that new amendments are also being sought in sections 52(2), and 63 of the proposed bill. The proposed amendment in section 52(2) states: ” In 2015, this section was amended to give INEC the discretion to determine the procedure for voting.
“Now it seeks to further amend the provision to allow the commission to conduct elections by electronic voting or any other method of voting as it may seem fit.”
Section 63(4) of the proposed laws makes provision for transmission of the election conducted at each of the polling units to the first level of collation of results to which the polling unit belongs in the constituency where the election is held.
Other new provisions in the bill titled ” Repeal of the Electoral Act No.6 2010 ( amendment bill ) 2020 ” are, that date for conduction of primary elections by political parties for their candidates must hold between 150 and 120 days to the date of the election.
Also, expenses to be made by any presidential candidate should not exceed =N=5billion, Gubernatorial candidates =N=1billion, Senatorial Candidates =N=100million and House of Representatives candidates =N=70million.
And for State Assembly membership candidates =N=30million, Chairmanship Candidates of Area Councils =N=30million and Councillorship candidates, =N=5million.
President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan while declaring the public hearing open, confirmed that the proposed bills will be passed before the end of the first quarter in 2021. He stressed that more than 85 requests were made by various stakeholders for amendments, which will be critically looked into in giving Nigerians, the more credible electoral process.
Suzan O
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