Reacting to the findings, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) insisted that it has operational mechanisms in place to manage overpopulated polling units and prevent extended voting.
Speaking with our reporter, the Deputy Director of Publicity at INEC, Wilfred Osilama Ifogah, dismissed reports of balloting and polling unit collation stretching into the dead of night.
“Midnight? Election midnight? No, that is not true. That investigation is not true. There is no election that will end by midnight. There is no way. Maybe calculation, when they are collating, can maybe take up to that time, maybe because of one logistical delay or the other. But that polling unit results will come by midnight, even if they are 1,000, they cannot vote up to that period,” Ifogah stated.
Ifogah maintained that the commission operates on an average threshold of 500 voters per unit and breaks up concentrations exceeding 750 voters.
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“Ordinarily, from the commission’s design, right from inception when we were still using manual methods, the average for every polling unit is 500. Anything more than 500, a unit is created to absorb it. But since digital methods started, more than 1,000 are registered. In order to manage the crowd, we do what they call split. So, anything that is beyond 750, that unit is broken up,” he explained.
He added that in locations with large voter rolls, the commission deploys extra personnel and multiple Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines to ensure voting concludes by 6:00 p.m. except for other logistic issues.
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