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Electronic collation for presidential election results
by INI EKOTT
April 15, 2011
The results for tomorrow's presidential polls are to be publicly displayed and tallied on electronic screens as they arrive from the states, at the Presidential Collation Centre, which will be launched today by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
Voting figures from all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, collated at the various polling units, will be summed electronically at the INEC Electoral Institute in Abuja and broadcast on live telecast as they trickle in after polls on Saturday evening, the commission said.
In a markedly different approach from the 2003 and 2007 elections, when results were manually computed, this method will feature the 21 presidential candidates and their parties on a number of screens, with respective scores per state as well as the cumulative figure updated as new data arrive.
The commission believes this approach showcases its drive towards transparency in these crucial elections, and highlights its preparedness for the second of three national polls.
The Presidential Collation Centre, located in the Central Business District of Abuja, will be unveiled to the media today, said Kayode Idowu, the chief press secretary to the chairman.
"We want everything to be open as they come from the states; the results will be added openly for everyone to see," said Mr. Idowu.
Earlier, on Twitter, the commission said the essence of the centre is to "facilitate the advance transfer of election results, to enable us declare the presidential election in record time."
A challenging process
Still, the electoral body has not fared well on its commitment to deliver timely final results of elections. The comprehensive results of last Saturday's National Assembly poll were delayed for over five days after balloting.
The commission said the 48-hour deadline it promised before the election was not "dogmatic" and was only intended as a guide.
At a press conference on Wednesday, the INEC chairman, Attahiru Jega, said the commission has avoided issuing the final results to prevent "errors" that may arise following mounting complaints by candidates who lost in some areas.
He maintained that the electoral body and its officials are fully set for the presidential election on Saturday.
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VANGUARD
PRESIDENTIAL POLL: INEC to paste results at polling centres
on APRIL 15, 2011 · · in NEWS
*Security on high alert
*As North makes final push
*Nigerians have the final say – ACF
ABUJA-INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, yesterday, directed all presiding officers of the commission to paste results of elections at the polling units as demanded by the electoral procedure.
This came just as the commission began the distribution of the last batch of sensitive electoral materials to its state offices, yesterday.
Meanwhile, the nation's security agencies are putting in place arrangements to raise the status of alertness.
The materials being distributed at press time were the ballot papers. An INEC source said the ballot papers had been with the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, in the last 48 to 72 hours but the directive to distribute them was given yesterday. All offices of the INEC had received the result sheets as of Thursday afternoon, the source added.
At the Lagos office of the INEC, yesterday, officers busied themselves receiving the materials and getting them arranged for distribution to all parts of the state.
Lagos INEC Public Affairs Officer, Mr. Ayodele Folami, said the commission would ensure that all the materials were distributed last night to avoid unnecessary hitches.
On declaration of results, Folami said apart from polling booth announcement, results of the presidential polls from the states would be transmitted to the National Collation Centre, Abuja, to be announced by the National Returning Officer.
Unlike in the past when the national chairman was the automatic returning officer for the presidential election, Folami said he was not certain if INEC boss, Prof Attahiru Jega, would function as the returning officer because it was not yet clear if Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECs, would announce governorship election results.
The INEC hierarchy recently toyed with the idea of getting highly placed citizens as was done in 2003, to serve as state returning officers. Former Vice Chancellor of University of Lagos, Prof. Ibidapo Obe, served as a returning officer for the 2003 guber polls in Lagos.
Paste results, Jega orders
Jega also directed all presiding officers of the commission to paste results of elections at the polling units as demanded by the electoral procedure.
The INEC chairman who said this when the European Union election observation group visited him in Abuja argued that this was necessary to guarantee transparency and ensure greater fairness in the polling process.
Jega who asked voters to ensure that results were pasted at the polling units after tabulation, however, expressed worries that the commission received reports that results were not pasted in some polling units during the National Assembly elections.
He said: "Once the results were tabulated, they must be pasted. This is in order to bring additional credibility in the polling process."
Jega said that other challenges that confronted the National Assembly election included late commencement of voting process due to late arrival of materials and some missing names in the voters' register, adding: "We hope there will be remarkable improvement by next Saturday."
The commission chairman also appealed to Nigerians to endure the inconveniences they have to go through during the on-going general elections adding that it was a necessary sacrifice they had to make in order to ensure that the electoral process is credible.
Commenting on the commission's preparations for tomorrow's presidential polls, Jega noted that procedures for voting would be more strictly complied with adding that accreditation of voters would be strengthened.
He said: "Some of the challenges of accreditation have been addressed. We have also taken steps to correct the omission of names of voters from the register at some polling centres. Our hope is that the presidential election would be better conducted than what obtained last Saturday."
He further stated that despite the expected larger turn-out of voters, "we are committed to strengthening the commission's logistics."
The INEC boss said he held meetings with 13 National Commissioners and 37 Residential Electoral Commissioners of the electoral body for the purpose of ensuring that the presidential poll is better conducted than the National Assembly elections.
Vanguard gathered, yesterday, that following the failed last ditch efforts of a former president, a former vice president, a former national security adviser, a former police inspector general and some elder statesmen from the North to salvage whatever was left of the CPC/ACN alliance, today's congregations across the North offers another opportunity to drive home the message for the emergence of a Nigerian president of Northern extraction.
Whereas the Electoral Act bars all forms of campaigns 24hours to any election, "the window of opportunity a Friday sermon affords can not be discountenanced and it is a normal thing. We expect to see very conservative leaders and clerics employing that as a means of getting their message across."
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PRESIDENTIAL POLL: We are ready •Jega tells EU, ECOWAS observers
Posted by News Updates on April 15, 2011 at 12:32am
Nigeria PoliticsBack to Nigeria Politics News
Written by Jacob Segun Olatunji, Abuja Friday, 15 April 2011
CHAIRMAN of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega, on Thursday, told the two delegations of international observer missions that are in the country to monitor the elections that the commission is well prepared for tomorrow's presidential poll.
Professor Jega, who received the election observers at the commission's headquarters in Abuja, told the delegations of the European Union Election Observation Mission (EU-EOM) to Nigeria and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Election Observation Mission to Nigeria that INEC had already deployed electoral materials in all the states ahead of the presidential poll.
Jega said: "All materials that we need are already on the ground and distributed in the states and from the reports we are getting in many of the states, actual distribution and deployment to particularly far-flung corners of the states has already commenced and there is very good working relationship between our officers and security agents.
"Frankly, I think we have done everything possible to hold the presidential election on Saturday and to also make sure that the outcome is a substantial improvement over last Saturday's election and we hope to keep on doing this on an incremental basis, so that by the time we hold the governorship and state assembly elections, our hope is that the last election will be the best in the sequence of elections that we hold."
Jega said that there was no going back on the modified open ballot system adopted for the election. He said it would be unwise to adopt a new voting strategy midway into the general election.
"In the meeting that we had on Tuesday, we paid a lot of attention to strengthening the accreditation system, making it more efficient and also the voting procedure.
"With time, when we restore sufficient credibility to the process, then we can begin to look at other ways of ensuring a more convenient procedure. But for now, we will make do with the Open Modified Ballot System," the INEC boss declared.
However, a press statement from ECOWAS disclosed that former president of the Interim Government of Liberia, Professor Amos Sawyyer, will head the ECOWAS Election Observation Mission for the presidential poll.
The statement disclosed that 300 regional observers are being deployed in the six geopolitical zones of the country to observe the election.
The statement reads in part: "Members of the mission include ECOWAS Ambassadors, representatives of the ECOWAS Council of the Wise, representatives of civil society organisations, the ECOWAS Parliament and Court of Justice, electoral experts, as well as representatives of electoral commissions from the 15-member states.
"Professor Sawyyer, who will be joined on election day by the president of the ECOWAS Commission, Ambassador James Victor Gbeho, was part of the ECOWAS Observer Mission to the 2008 general election in Ghana. He led the organisation's pre-election fact-finding mission to Ghana in October 2008.
"These missions also enabled ECOWAS to determine appropriate assistance to be rendered to such states in order to ensure the conduct of free, transparent and credible elections in the region," the statement concluded.
via Tribune
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