"(3) the third demand is for INEC to provide on their website WITHOUT FURTHER DELAY the SAMPLE BALLOTS of ALL the contests – the 1 Presidential Contest, the 25/30 Gubernatorial Contests, the 469 National Assembly Contests and the 2200-plus state assembly contest – every single one of the 2700-plus contests! That is NOT TOO difficult to display, whereupon we will see what party logo is missing or not, so that again there are no surprises on Election Day. It is arrant nonsense to say that displaying them will lead to forging them" -Bolaji Aluko
It is actually NOT arrant nonsense at all. Knowing what they look like DOES lead to forgery in Nigeria, unfortunately, and that's just the plain FACT. Based on previous elections, there is an excellent reason why Jega is hiding the ballot. If you can hide the ballot until election day, you will have another leg-up on the riggers.
But the main point you are making is important -that information needs to be verified. I agree completely. But verifying the information on the ballot is not the same thing as displaying the actual ballot. The problem here is a purely technical one. And luckily for INEC, the solution is both ultra-cheap, and ultra-easy, provided you invest some good old planning into what you are doing.
Two things to note:
(a.) All the ballot papers are essentially in the same cookie-cutter format: they list a political position, and they list candidates/parties.
(b.) All the candidates also fit the cookie-cutter template: they are mortals, they have names, they have pictures, they have parties, and they are they are contesting for a specific position in a specific electoral district!
This is all standard non-hairy stuff.
So with a little planning, you can trivially build a database of all the candidates, and that database would contain and auto-magically link each candidate to specific ballot details -such as correct party names, correct party logos, correct electoral districts, correct digital photo, etc, etc.
And to be absolutely sure that your information is correct, you can publish all that information on the web, directly from the database.
You can then have the INEC team from every state or electoral district verify and sign off on the information -isnt' that why they are hired?
You can then have every party verify and sign off on the information -isnt' that why they are hired?
You can have everyone verify the correctness or otherwise of the same information. With enough eyeballs, no mistake will go undetected.
Note that you are publishing the data from which the ballot will be auto-magically generated. You are NOT displaying the actual ballot paper.
And from that verified database, you can automatically generate and print all the ballot papers, including the numbering sequence, and as long the information you have is correct. NO need to tempt the riggers by showing your ballot paper.
DominicOn Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 11:32 AM, Mobolaji ALUKO <alukome@gmail.com> wrote:
MONDAY QUARTER-BACKING: SNATCHING VICTORY FROM THE JAWS OF DEFEAT BY THIS 2011 ELECTION SNAFU
By
Mobolaji E. Aluko, PhD
Monday, April 04, 2011
Despite my best efforts to keep more mute, the super-importance of our electoral democracy and the present April 2 snafu supervised by our friend and colleague at INEC Prof. Attahiru Jega make it imperative that I join in making a desperate-ditch attempt to see how we can snatch victory from the jaws of national embarrassment in these 2011 Elections.
There is an imperative that I must assert right away: This is no time for recriminations – or asking Jega to resign. That can wait until after May 29, 2011, if at all. Right now, ALL Nigerians MUST resolve that WE MUST all work together with INEC to GET THIS THING right EVEN if we have to do these elections into the second week in May 2011.
We must declare an ELECTORAL EMERGENCY in Nigeria. This is no longer MERELY a machine issue but a human and system management issue aided by technology. We must take out this "gambling" eyi-je-eyi-o-je mentality away from our national planning.
Here is what I mean….
Today is Monday April 4, 2011. The 2011 cycle of elections, which were supposed to have started last Saturday, have now, through acts of commission or omission of INEC, been postponed as follows:
1. - National Assembly – April 9
2. - Presidential – April 16
3. - State and Gubernatorial – April 26
All well and good. There is no use crying over spilt milk.
But between today and April 9, should we as political parties, candidates, citizens and other international "stakeholders" twiddle our thumbs and just wait to see whether INEC falls flat on its face – AGAIN?
Hell no! The national embarrassment that we are currently facing is enough for us to say "Hell no, we are mad as hell and we ain't going to wait around any more!"
So what must we do between now and then?
1. (1) The first is to DEMAND that if 48 hours before any one election, the political parties and candidates have not been VERIFIABLY assured – not just by word of mouth - that everything is ready to go, if not in 100% of the polling units, at least in 90%, then those elections are SHIFTED by one week, no compromises. Simply wishing against all hope that "ee go good, ee go good" – and then being disappointed – again - is no option. So Jega must be SAT DOWN, and the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, Police, Civil Defence Corps, National Youth Service Corps, etc. MUST be mobilized to ensure that materials get to where they must – and are secured there once they get there, possibly in as many bank vaults as possible.
2. (2) the second demand is for INEC to provide NOW, without further delay, the DVDs of ALL the voters register which by LAW it should have given to ALL the political parties and ANY candidates that demand them TWO or THREE Tuesdays ago! That way, each party and candidate can go through the list ward by ward and help voters determine whether their names are on the register or not, so that there are no surprises on Election Day. I have spent the past three weeks privately emailing EVERY top party official that I know in ALL off the parties – PDP, ACN, Labor, ANPP, CPC, CNPP; they and Jega can bear me out as they read this piece that I am an equal-opportunity harasser of political parties and election officials – why and/or whether they have received or demanded this statutory DVD, and all I have gotten were LAME EXCUSES: "Every body is on the campaign trail", or "Let us give them till next week; you know this is Nigeria", "I will ask on Friday" – or just plain silence. The political parties are therefore in some respect complicit in this present disaster for not being more assertive about their legal rights.
3. (3) the third demand is for INEC to provide on their website WITHOUT FURTHER DELAY the SAMPLE BALLOTS of ALL the contests – the 1 Presidential Contest, the 25/30 Gubernatorial Contests, the 469 National Assembly Contests and the 2200-plus state assembly contest – every single one of the 2700-plus contests! That is NOT TOO difficult to display, whereupon we will see what party logo is missing or not, so that again there are no surprises on Election Day. It is arrant nonsense to say that displaying them will lead to forging them: is it the display of currency notes of virtually every country in the world that leads to currency forgery?
4. (4) fourthly, INEC should show the Nigeria the SITUATION ROOM that it has set up or it intends to set up where they should be QUARTER at least 1,200 INEC Monitors, each assigned to 100 Polling Units, each armed with a full credit-loaded GSM, that can be used to communicate with each designated INEC official in each of the PUs so that at 7 am on all the Election Days, there can be brief SITUATION REPORTS as to what is happening at each PU. For example, on April 2, was there ANY official and contemporaneous information about the PUs where:
- No election materials arrive
- Election materials (sans result sheets) arrive but no accreditation was done.
- Accreditation was done, but no voting was done
- Voting was done but not completed
- Voting was done AND completed
- Completed voting WAS recorded on Results Sheets
In case you are surprised at the last category, I am now hearing – but cannot confirm - that in fact SOME polling units did have result sheets; that some result sheets might in fact have been nefariously diverted. INEC should tell us whether in fact SOME results sheets did get to certain polling units or not, and where are they now.
5. (5) Finally, the situation of each polling unit and collation center should also always be ready for DISPLAY on INEC's website, in addition to other timely information. Even if MOST Nigerians do not have access to INEC's website, yet there must be ONE SOURCE OF AUTHORITATIVE INFORMATION from INEC - and where else in this day and age other than its own website, if there is not to be information chaos and uncertainty? On April 2, for example, I kept returning to INEC's website, http://www.inecnigeria.org only to be confronted with a stolid and fixed website. However, I am happy to note that the results cancellation was put on the website in a timely manner. However on that day, the best websites giving up-to-date information to the world were:
- Daily Trust's Verdict 2011
http://dailytrust.dailytrust.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=160
- Reclaim Naija's Incident Report System
http://reclaimnaija.net/reports
- Sahara Reporters Election 2011
http://saharareporters.com/spotlight/Nigerian-Election-2011
- Tell Magazine
- Nigerianmuse.com
- Nigeria 2011 Election Centre
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Nigeria-2011-Election-Centre/169819256402639?ref=ts
- Nigeria Village Square
http://nigeriavillagesquare.com/
- Any others missed?
On all the above, I stand, and I hope that you join me there. INEC must not be allowed to disappoint the nation again this April.
There you have it.
Bolaji Aluko
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