‘BVAS Is About 98% Accurate, Rigging Is Now A Thing Of The Past For INEC’

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has insisted that the use of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines at the 2023 general election and subsequent ones has brought an end to rigging in the electoral process in the country.

According to the commission, rigging is no longer possible with the use of the BVAS because results can’t be manipulated on the device, and the accuracy of the machine is about 96 to 98%.

Naija News gathered from an interview with an INEC Senior Administrative Officer in the Asa local government area of Kwara State, Akanbi Muraina Olaitan, that records can’t be manipulated on the device because it is only designed to record.

Olaitan explained that it’s not possible for anyone to have access to change anything or add or subtract anything because whatever is being recorded is intact on the device.

According to him, with the experiences from the Ekiti and Osun States governorship elections, he can boldly say the accuracy of the machine is between 95 to 98%, noting that unlike the card reader used in previous elections, the batteries are sound and the BVAS is accurate.

Olaitan, who revealed that the collation of election results has been made much easier with the Ekiti and Osun experience, told Naija News that gone were the days when politicians buy Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) from poor Nigerians for the purpose of rigging elections.

He pointed out that BVAS has come to stay considering it has been passed into law, adding that nothing can stop INEC from using it in 2023.

He submitted that what politicians can only do is mobilise electorates to register and help them to their polling units to vote, as well as educate them to avoid wasting votes.

He advanced that “Rigging is impossible with BVAS, I won’t say almost but impossible now. times are past when politicians use to collect PVCs to come to accredit people for the purpose of rigging.

“Now politicians are advised to invest their time in facilitating registration and getting people out to their polling units, you can’t use their cards you can only help them get to their polling unit to allow them to cast their votes, so rigging in INEC is a thing of the past.”

The INEC personnel further cited that if the machine has 100 voters registered on it, one can’t have more than that figure of ballot papers, and in cases where results might be manipulated on the results sheet, whatever is recorded on the BVAS machine has the final say.

He explained that it is so because the record on the machine is what would be transmitted to the central server.

Olaitan, however, confided in Naija News that the device from the Ekiti and Osun State governorship elections posed network challenges, which he said has been addressed.

The commission, according to him, has tackled it with other challenges observed to perfect it ahead of the 2023 general election.

He submitted that instructions have been given that in circumstances where the network would fail at the polling unit level, personnel should come to the ward level, and if the network fails on that level too, they can come to the local government level because the LGA offices of INEC have been deliberately situated at places where network won’t fail.