Senate amends Electoral Act, okays card reader, addresses Kogi debacle

THE Senate, on Thursday, empowered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct future elections using the electronic voting method and the card reader.

The lawmakers passed the Electoral Act Amendment Bill, which amended the 2010 Electoral Act and gave approval to the use of the card reader and electronic voting method.

The card reader was used by INEC for the 2015 elections, even though there was no legal backing for its use.

The Supreme Court, in its ruling on a number of governorship elections, refused to nullify the polls for failure to use the card reader.

The Senate also attempted to end the imbroglio that erupted following the death of the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the November 2015 election in Kogi State, Alhaji Abubakar Audu, midway into the election, by empowering affected political party to conduct fresh primaries for a new candidate within 14 days.

INEC is also empowered to conclude the election within 21 days, while votes already garnered by the deceased candidate would be transferred to the new candidate.

Provision for electronic voting in the amended Act is contained in Section 52 (2) and it indicates that: “the electoral commission shall adopt electronic voting in all elections or any other method of voting as may be determined by the commission from time to time.”

The bill, however, provides that INEC would have the discretion to adopt other methods of voting if it becomes impracticable to use e-voting in any election.

In Section 49, the new bill legalised the card reader used by INEC to authenticate Permanent Voters Cards during the 2015 election during accreditation.

Section 49 (2) indicates that: “the presiding officer shall use a smart card reader or any other technological device that may be prescribed by the commission from time to time for the accreditation of voters, to verify, confirm or authenticate the genuineness or otherwise of the voter card.”

In order to avoid what played out in the November 2015 gubernatorial election in Kogi State, the amendment in Sections 36 (3a, b  and c) proffered solutions.

Section 87 which deals with nominations of candidates by parties for election from councillorship to Presidency pegs the amount a party can collect from candidates.

The bill indicated that fees payable to the parties by councillorship aspirants should not exceed  N150,000.00, local government chairmen are to pay N250,000.00, state House of Assembly members are to pay N500,000.00, a House of Representative aspirant  is to pay N1,000,000.00, senatorial aspirant will pay N2,000,000.00, governorship aspirant is to pay N5,000,000.00 and the presidential aspirant will pay N10,000,000.00.

Others provisions included guidelines specifically for political parties in election of delegates for their primaries, whether direct or indirect and jurisdictions of courts over such primaries.

The bill states that though it can entertain cases relating or arising from conduct of party primaries from aggrieved aspirants, it cannot stop any primaries from holding.