Amended Electoral Act To Allow For Electronic Transmission Of Results, Says Ekweremadu

Former Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu on Friday said lawmakers are attempting to amend the electoral act to allow for electronic transmission of election results.

Senator Ekweremadu is a member of the Senate Committee on INEC.

Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today, Ekweremadu said the electronic transmission of results will improve the integrity of elections in Nigeria.

“What we are working on now, we want to take a step further by saying that you don’t just conduct the elections through electronic means, but importantly you also need to transmit it through electronic means,” Ekweremadu said.

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“Because most of the trouble we have with our elections happen between the polling booth and where they do the collation.

“So this can be bypassed by using the elctronic means of transmission. I was in Edo eelction and it worked. They simply uploaded the results from the polling booth straight to the INEC website and people can have access to it and can monitor the election as the results are coming in.

“But it wasn’t in any part of the electoral act or the constitution; so we intend to bring it into the electoral act and hoping that our colleagues will also accept it.”

The Joint Technical Committee on Repeal of Electoral Act 2010, on Tuesday, had submitted its report to the National Assembly Joint Committee on Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and Electoral Matters.

Ekweremadu said the lawmakers are also attempting to pass a bill that improves the timelines of elections.