INEC Introduces BVAS Safeguards to Prevent Election Result Manipulation
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has introduced new technological safeguards to its Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) aimed at preventing the manipulation of election results.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Joash Amupitan (SAN), disclosed this on Wednesday in Abuja during a meeting with Resident Electoral Commissioners and the inauguration of Dr. Chukwu Joseph as Resident Electoral Commissioner for Abia State.
Amupitan said the upgrades were designed to strengthen the result management system and safeguard the integrity of data transmitted to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV).
“We have identified that the greatest threat to our electoral process is not even the voting at the polling units but the actual collation of results at several levels,” he said.
He explained that under the upgraded system, presiding officers are required to capture and upload an image of the completed Form EC8A to the IReV and to enter each political party’s scores directly into the BVAS device.
“The BVAS system performs internal validation checks to ensure that the total votes entered do not exceed the number of accredited voters. The figures entered are mathematically consistent. Over-voting is automatically flagged and cannot be finalised,” he said.
According to him, the enhancements were tested during the recent FCT Area Council election, as well as constituency elections in Kano and Rivers states, with results successfully uploaded to IReV.
“As we speak, an average of 97 per cent of the results have been uploaded to IReV for the FCT Area Council election,” he added.
Amupitan also dismissed as false allegations of result manipulation at the Kuroko Health Centre polling unit in Kwali Area Council during the FCT election.
An investigation, he said, revealed a clerical error by a presiding officer who recorded 122 votes for a party instead of 121 but corrected the figure in words. The accurate result was subsequently entered into the Ward Collation Form EC8B.
He noted that the incident prompted the FCT Resident Electoral Commissioner to issue a press statement addressing the matter and other minor alterations.
“Although there is no perfect election, Nigerians are looking to us with heightened anticipation and scrutiny. There is no room for error or excuse in this crucial process,” Amupitan said.
The INEC chairman further disclosed that, following the enactment of the Electoral Act 2026 on February 13, the commission would issue a revised timetable and schedule of activities for the 2027 General Election.
He also announced a forthcoming voter revalidation exercise aimed at conducting a thorough clean-up of the voter register to strengthen its integrity ahead of 2027.
The second phase of the Continuous Voter Registration exercise, he said, remains ongoing and will continue until April 17, while the entire exercise is scheduled to conclude on August 30.
