Elections: INEC Confirms Purchase Of 20,000 Backup Card Readers And 35,000 Backup batteries

INEC on Saturday confirmed the purchase of 20,000 backup card readers and 35,000 backup batteries as contingency plans to tackle possible challenges during the accreditation and election exercise scheduled to hold on March 28 and April 11.

In an interview with SUNDAY PUNCH, Mr. Kayode Idowu, the Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, however, said with the procurement of backup devices, among other precautionary measures, it would limit the challenges that may arise during the election exercise.

He said, "We have learnt specifically from Ghana's experience that with regard to the design of the card readers, there could be battery problems. As a result, some of those card readers could not function and thus, elections had to be rescheduled to the following week because the (political parties) and the commission agreed that there would be no voting without accreditation. In Nigeria, we have also taken all that into account.

"The first of the three plans is that for each card reader, we have backup batteries. In Ghana, it was batteries that failed. The design of the card reader is such that the battery, when in continuous use, would last 12 hours. But accreditation is for five hours. So, if the battery is fully charged, there is no way you can exhaust the battery capacity. Despite that, we have spare batteries; more than 35,000 batteries have been procured so that if, for whatever reason, there may be a challenge with the battery, one can replace it.

"We also have spare card readers, in case the problem is the entire device. That aside, we have done integrity tests, several of which were carried out in Texas, us, showing that they don't fail easily and that they are of the highest quality. In spite of that, we have bought nearly 20,000 spares, in addition to 152,000 active card readers, so that if for any reason the card reader malfunctions and can no longer continue, the spares would be deployed at the wards for the exercise."

Idowu explained that, "rather than reverting to manual, the political parties agreed on this. The reason is obvious: if we say we should revert to manual, human factor will come in, because there are so many people who don't want these card readers to be used."

Idowu further noted that the card readers are pre-configured in such a way as to avoid every possible manipulations and detect irregularities.

He said, "Each card reader is pre-configured to a polling unit. In other words, before polling officials get to the polling units on election day, technical staff of INEC would have configured the card reader to that polling unit for them to use. The card reader is also programmed such that if one were to use it between 8 am and 1 pm, for instance, and attempt to use it again at 8 pm, it will not work. That's part of the configuration.

"The second thing is that when voter cards are read and people are accredited, it instantly sends the data on accreditation to a central server ahead of the counting of the ballot papers. Therefore, before ballot papers are cast, the commission at the back end already has the information of how many people were accredited.

"Previously, immediately after accreditation, officials were to enter the accreditation figures before voting starts. But in reality, there would be a delay in sending the accreditation figures and, when ballot papers are cast, funny deals would be made resulting in false accreditation figures. That is no longer possible because the card reader sends the information to a central server," Idowu noted.

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Source: Newsbeat Portal, The Punch
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