The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has denied the allegations on manipulation of voters data on the several Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, used in the Saturday’s governorship election in Kogi State.
Recall that the candidate of the Social Democratic Party in the election, Yakubu Murtala, had alleged the commission worked with the ruling All Progressives Congress to manipulate the data to reflect alleged over-voting in polling units across four local government areas in the State.
However, the National Commissioner and member, Information and Voter Education Committee of INEC, Mohammed Kudu Haruna denied the allegations in a statement yesterday.
He said INEC’s attention was drawn to some media reports alleging that the commission was tampering with the accredited figures of voters in the Kogi governorship election results uploaded on the INEC Result Viewing, IReV, portal.
Describing the reports as unfounded, Haruna noted the most accurate and up-to-date voters’ accreditation data was available in the BVAS, which is used for the authentication and accreditation of registered voters at various polling units on election day.
“It automatically retains the accreditation data of all voters”, he stated”, adding that the BVAS is designed to primarily work offline without internet connectivity, which facilitates faster and seamless authentication and accreditation experience for voters.
He said: “However, when its application is active or in use, depending on the strength of its connection to the internet, the BVAS automatically exports the accreditation data to the Accreditation Backend System, ABS.
“This exportation of data does not happen when the device’s application is inactive or when the internet connectivity is poor.
The same experience applies to a situation where more than one BVAS gadget is used at a polling unit with more than 1,250 registered voters.
“This could be compared to a situation where poor network services delay the delivery of an SMS sent from one individual to another through a mobile phone.
“At the close of poll, presiding officers are expected to press the data exportation button on the BVAS to ensure all the accreditation data are exported to the ABS.
“This process, referred to as synchronization, and which is ongoing, could lead to changes in the accreditation figures as more data flow in to update the existing figures.
“This is the basis for the caveat provided on the IReV portal, regarding the accreditation figures. The accreditation data cannot be changed on the BVAS after the close of poll. The public should disregard the misleading report and misinformation”.
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