{"id":2198,"date":"2021-07-22T16:33:19","date_gmt":"2021-07-22T16:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/?p=2198"},"modified":"2021-07-22T17:05:47","modified_gmt":"2021-07-22T17:05:47","slug":"inec-reiterates-capacity-for-electronic-transmission-of-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/inec-reiterates-capacity-for-electronic-transmission-of-results\/","title":{"rendered":"INEC Reiterates Capacity for Electronic Transmission of Results"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In the thick of controversy over the electronic transmission of results, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has come to state categorically that it has the capacity and requisite technology to transmit election results electronically, even from the remotest parts of the country. INEC National Commissioner and Chairman of its Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye in a television interview on Saturday, 17<sup>th<\/sup> July, stated that INEC has the capacity and will to deepen the use of technology in the electoral process. Okoye further emphasized that, \u201c<em>Our powers are given by the Constitution and the law and we will continue to remain within the ambit and confines of the power granted to the commission by the Constitution and the law<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This contrasts with the\nsubmissions of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), when it appeared\nbefore the House of representatives on Friday, 16<sup>th<\/sup> July. The House\nof Representatives in the course of considering the Electoral bill, invited\nINEC and the NCC to speak on the practicability of electronic transmission of\nelection results. However, only representatives of the NCC were admitted to give\ntestimony at the House plenary. According to the NCC, Nigeria has only 49%\ncoverage of 3G network required for electronic transmission of results and as\nsuch, it was not practicable <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A joint technical committee of\nINEC and NCC was constituted in 2018, ahead of the 2019 general elections, with\nthe aim to determine and facilitate cellular network coverage of INEC\u2019s 120,000\npolling units for the conduct of the elections. It was in furtherance to this\npurpose that NCC presented a cellular network coverage map of Nigeria, and all\ntelecommunications operators involved in the process concluded that INEC\u2019s\nproposed electronic transmission of results is practicable. The committee went\non to resolve among others, that the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards to\nbe used in INEC\u2019s card readers &nbsp;for the\nelection should be customised to have unique security features and\nfunctionalities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>INEC has conducted several\nelections in which it adopted the Z-pad technology and its Results Viewing\nportal for the upload and display of polling unit election results,\nrespectively. The technology was introduced in 2020 and first deployed in a\nbye-election in Nasarawa State in August 2020. Subsequently, it was used in the\ngovernorship elections in Edo and Ondo states in September and October 2020,\nrespectively. Since then, it has also been used in six senatorial bye-elections\nin Bayelsa, Cross River, Imo, Lagos and Plateau States; three House of\nRepresentatives bye-elections in Niger, Abia and Jigawa States; 14 House of\nAssembly bye-elections in 13 States, and one Area Councillorship election in\nthe Federal Capital Territory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Indeed, INEC has stated clearly\nits ability to transmit election results from more than 92% of the country\u2019s\npolling unit locations. According to INEC, the remaining 8% where there is\npresently limited coverage, can be easily addressed by paying telecom companies\nto deploy mobile base stations, retrievable after elections. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the thick of controversy over the electronic transmission of results, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has come to state categorically that it has the capacity and requisite technology to transmit election results electronically, even from the remotest parts of the country. INEC National Commissioner and Chairman of its Information and Voter Education Committee, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1026,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[389],"class_list":["post-2198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-inec-reiterates-capacity-for-transmission-of-electronic-results"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2198"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2205,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2198\/revisions\/2205"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}