A universally acceptable election in Nigeria would without a doubt usher in a new era of political stability; the objective of this write up is to suggest a method by which this can be accomplished. Credible elections can be conducted in Nigeria by applying a hybrid manual-electronic electioneering system. State of the art electronic technology has been used successfully in the banking industry, stock markets, manufacturing industry, educational and other institutions all over the world to increase speed, reliability and efficiency of its operations. If carefully orchestrated there is no reason why such a system cannot be deployed in Nigeria’s electioneering process to facilitate a smooth, reliable, efficient and credible polling process..
Registration of voters:
This is very important step in the election process. The validity of an election is highly dependent on the integrity of the voter registration process. The objective of the registration process is to ensure that no individual cannot register or vote more than once. This can be accomplished through the use of electronic devices such as fingerprint and (or) biometric scanners. Without a fingerprint scan no voter would be allowed to register (this would greatly reduce the possibility of ghost voter registration). For voters that are handicapped some alternate unique biometric feature such as an iris scan could be used. During the registration process each voter would have his passport picture taken, and a unique voter registration number assigned. The voter registration information such as name, address, date of birth, passport picture and biometric scan would then be uploaded into a secure database backed up in several remote locations. On completing the registration process, a tamperproof voter’s card would be issued on the spot. This card would contain the voter’s personal information, a passport picture, voter registration number and a barcode of the voter’s registration number.
The Polling Station.
Each polling station would be equipped with a generator, computers, barcode scanners, time lapse cameras, totalizing counters and network access. In addition to the election officials, there would be three representatives from each party who have attended a pre-organized training session organized by the electoral commission to protect the party’s interest and military personnel for security. In the next section we would see how all these come into play in ensuring fool proof elections.
The Voting Process.
The objective here is to ensure a secure efficient, smooth and rapid voting process. The voting process begins by the voter showing his voter’s card in the presence to an election official in the presence of party officials. A barcode scanner is used to scan the barcode on the card, and the voter information is called up. The picture of the voter is compared with that of the voter, if okay and he is then prompted to place his palm on the finger print scanner for verification. If everything checks out correct the voter is then issued a ballot paper and proceeds into the private polling booth where places his thumbprint on the ballot paper after which he drops it into a ballot box. On the entrance of each polling booth there would be a tamperproof totalizing counter which keeps count of the number of voter going into the polling booths. Before the polling commences each party representative would verify that the counters are on zero. The importance of having the counters is that at any polling station there cannot be more ballot papers than the total count of voters that went into the polling booths. In addition to the counters there would be time lapse camera which records the voters as they proceed into the polling booth. The importance of this is that it would present hard evidence should there be any grievances in the outcome of the election.
Closing the polls
Immediately after the polls are closed, the ballots would be counted out loudly by an election official in the presence of the party representatives and a camera. The results are then submitted to the polling headquarters, where the results would be published as soon as all the results are in. The results would be published online for each an every single polling station in the country. The importance of this is that this creates transparency in the results. Party representative have access to the results and can verify that the results are correct. Video files would be uploaded onto a couple of networks drives where they can be retrieved later on (for hard evidence)should grievance proceedings on the results commence at a later date.
Conclusion
The only draw back in this system is that this an expensive electioneering system, but Nigeria is a nation with the resources to implement such a system. There can be nothing more fundamental or more important to any people that the process which selects those which who govern them.
Registration of voters:
This is very important step in the election process. The validity of an election is highly dependent on the integrity of the voter registration process. The objective of the registration process is to ensure that no individual cannot register or vote more than once. This can be accomplished through the use of electronic devices such as fingerprint and (or) biometric scanners. Without a fingerprint scan no voter would be allowed to register (this would greatly reduce the possibility of ghost voter registration). For voters that are handicapped some alternate unique biometric feature such as an iris scan could be used. During the registration process each voter would have his passport picture taken, and a unique voter registration number assigned. The voter registration information such as name, address, date of birth, passport picture and biometric scan would then be uploaded into a secure database backed up in several remote locations. On completing the registration process, a tamperproof voter’s card would be issued on the spot. This card would contain the voter’s personal information, a passport picture, voter registration number and a barcode of the voter’s registration number.
The Polling Station.
Each polling station would be equipped with a generator, computers, barcode scanners, time lapse cameras, totalizing counters and network access. In addition to the election officials, there would be three representatives from each party who have attended a pre-organized training session organized by the electoral commission to protect the party’s interest and military personnel for security. In the next section we would see how all these come into play in ensuring fool proof elections.
The Voting Process.
The objective here is to ensure a secure efficient, smooth and rapid voting process. The voting process begins by the voter showing his voter’s card in the presence to an election official in the presence of party officials. A barcode scanner is used to scan the barcode on the card, and the voter information is called up. The picture of the voter is compared with that of the voter, if okay and he is then prompted to place his palm on the finger print scanner for verification. If everything checks out correct the voter is then issued a ballot paper and proceeds into the private polling booth where places his thumbprint on the ballot paper after which he drops it into a ballot box. On the entrance of each polling booth there would be a tamperproof totalizing counter which keeps count of the number of voter going into the polling booths. Before the polling commences each party representative would verify that the counters are on zero. The importance of having the counters is that at any polling station there cannot be more ballot papers than the total count of voters that went into the polling booths. In addition to the counters there would be time lapse camera which records the voters as they proceed into the polling booth. The importance of this is that it would present hard evidence should there be any grievances in the outcome of the election.
Closing the polls
Immediately after the polls are closed, the ballots would be counted out loudly by an election official in the presence of the party representatives and a camera. The results are then submitted to the polling headquarters, where the results would be published as soon as all the results are in. The results would be published online for each an every single polling station in the country. The importance of this is that this creates transparency in the results. Party representative have access to the results and can verify that the results are correct. Video files would be uploaded onto a couple of networks drives where they can be retrieved later on (for hard evidence)should grievance proceedings on the results commence at a later date.
Conclusion
The only draw back in this system is that this an expensive electioneering system, but Nigeria is a nation with the resources to implement such a system. There can be nothing more fundamental or more important to any people that the process which selects those which who govern them.
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