THE POLITICAL OF ELECTRONIC VOTING SYSTEM IN NIGERIA A CASE STUDY OF THE 2015 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
CHAPTER ONE
Background of the Study
1.1 Introduction
One of the real issues about the 2015 presidential election in Nigeria, was the use of innovative anti-rigging biometric system. The administration of the election witnessed the use of smart card readers (SCR) for the authentication of biometric permanent voter card (PVCs) and the accreditation of voters.
The introduction of these devices was necessitated by the fact that reliable voters registration and identification mechanism are some of the precondition for free, fair and credible election.
However, the legality of the devices was questioned, although section 52 of the electoral act, 2010 (as amended ) prescribed election voting (e-voting), the smart card reader (SCR) is a form of identification, not a means of casting a ballot.
The use of SCR in some quarters experience qlishes in its functionality thereby leading to manual accreditation of some voters.
This attracted negative reactions which consequently fuelled the erroneous conclusion that the Nigerian electoral system is not ripe for the application of such technology. Moreover, it embolden many disenchanted voters to exercise their franchise because of the assurance and confidence the new system brought. The role of electronic technology in improving free, fair and credible election has not attracted much attention in the literature.
      According to Golden, Kramon and Ofosu (2014), “this technological solutions such as electronic voting machine, polling stations, web cams, and biometric identification equipment offer the promise of rapid, accurate and ostensible tampered proof innovation that are expected to reduce fraud in the processes of registration, voting or vote count aggregation. Biometric identification machines authenticates the identity of voters using biometric makers such as finger print, that almost impossible to counterfeit.
      The technology is particularly useful in setting where government have not previously established reliable or complete paper – base identification system for their population (Gelb and Feeker 2012).
THE POLITICAL OF ELECTRONIC VOTING SYSTEM IN NIGERIA A CASE STUDY OF THE 2015 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
