The proposal for real-time electronic upload of election results was rejected yesterday by the Senate during consideration of the Electoral Act Amendment.
After hours of meetings, executive sessions and deliberations, the Senate approved sweeping changes to electoral timelines, sanctions for electoral offences, voter accreditation and post-election dispute resolution.
Controversies trailed the passage of the bill by the senate over the rejection of clause 60 of the bill which deals with the transmission of election results.
Critics and opposition figures confused the term “real-time upload of polling unit results” with “transmission of results.”
Senate President Godswill Akpabio, who presided over the plenary, clarified that the Senate never rejected the electronic transmission of results.
Akpabio also dismissed allegations that the Senate had voted against electronic transmission altogether, describing them as false.
He said: “That is not true. What we did was to retain the electronic transmission that existed in the 2022 Act. Retaining that provision means electronic transmission remains part of our law. Under my watch, the Senate has not rejected electronic transmission of election results.”
Akpabio added: “Contrary to reports, the Senate has not rejected electronic transmission of results. Electronic transmission has always been part of our laws. We are moving forward, not backwards.”
The rejected amendment would have expressly required that “the Presiding Officer shall electronically transmit the results from each polling unit to the IReV portal in real time” after the signing of Form EC8A.
Senators opposed to the proposal pointed out that the phrase “real time” was vague, impracticable in areas with poor or non-existent network coverage, and capable of opening elections to needless legal disputes.
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Adeyemi Adaramodu, explained that the disagreement was more about wording than substance, stressing that the Senate did not remove the electronic transmission of results.
He said: “On transmission, we said we are retaining Section 60 as it has always been. Results must be transmitted electronically and made available to the public.
“At the same time, the physical forms (Form EC8A and others) will still serve as evidence.
“They will remain evidence. So we still have correlating evidence: electronic transmission and physical documents. We have not removed electronic transmission.”
Adaramodu warned against what he described as over-legalisation of the electoral process through ambiguous language.
He said: “When we talk about real time, how do we define real time? In some places, after voting, the network may not be available, and you may need to travel for one or two hours before you can transmit.
“So, can you still insist on five minutes? We cannot subject this matter to semantics. What matters is that results reach the electorate electronically for verification.”
Although the bill was passed last December by the House of Representatives, the Senate, which reconvened last week, completed the process yesterday.
Following the passage by the Senate, the next stage is the harmonisation of the versions approved by both chambers by the Conference Committee for the whole house to approve before sending to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for assent.
It is expected that the new bill after assented to will replace the Electoral Act 2022 under which the 2023 elections were conducted.
Senators voted to retain the provision contained in the 2022 Electoral Act, which mandates the transmission of results in a manner prescribed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), rather than compel presiding officers to upload results to the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal “in real time.”
Under the retained provision, “the Presiding Officer shall, after counting the votes at the polling unit, enter the votes scored by each candidate in a form to be prescribed by the Commission,” which “shall be signed and stamped by the presiding officer and countersigned by the candidates or their polling agents where available.”
The presiding officer is also required to “count and announce the result at the polling unit” and “transfer the results, including the total number of accredited voters and the results of the ballot, in a manner as prescribed by the Commission.”
Any presiding officer who “willfully contravenes any provision of this section commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding N500,000 or imprisonment for a term of at least six months.”
