INEC Plans Mock Voting to Test New Measures for 2027 Elections

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has set a date for a nationwide mock voting and accreditation exercise on 28 November. This is to test its upgraded electoral technology before the 2027 general elections.

INEC Chairman Joash Amupitan announced this date on Thursday. He spoke during a meeting with the Kimpact Development Initiative (KDI) at Chatham House in London.

Mr Amupitan said this exercise will help the commission test its new accreditation system and the electronic way of sending election results before the elections in January and February 2027.

He explained that INEC has introduced new technical measures to stop wrong results or over-voting from being sent to its Result Viewing Portal (IReV). The mock exercise will check how well these improvements work before the elections.

"We found that the core problem of election result management and declaration in Nigeria is not even at the polling unit, it is at the collation centres," he said.

He added, "In 2023, there were instances of inaccurate results or results with over-voting being uploaded onto IReV. We have now devised a technical safeguard: if a result is not accurate at the polling unit, it will not go to IReV at all."

This exercise will test the improvements made to the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the commission's result management systems. This follows worries about how the technology worked during the 2023 elections.

Mr Amupitan noted that INEC has upgraded its current electoral technology instead of creating a new one. He pointed out that there is not enough time to develop an entirely new system before the 2027 elections.

He mentioned that INEC has also fixed some problems that affected BVAS during the 2023 elections. These problems included device failures due to high heat and bad storage.

He said the commission is building climate-controlled storage facilities in various states and has bought more BVAS devices. He also said that INEC has lowered the maximum number of registered voters per BVAS device from 1,250 to 850. Polling Units (PU) with more than 850 registered voters will get extra devices.

During the last elections, many people criticized the electronic sending of results on the Result Viewing Portal (IReV). This issue led to a decline in public trust in the electoral process.

Mr Amupitan recognized the lack of trust. He said the commission is still working to recover from the issues caused by the 2023 elections.

He added that INEC's review of the election found that collation centres were the main problem areas, not polling units. This led to the introduction of new technical measures to stop wrong results and over-voting from being sent to IReV.

"We have now devised a technical safeguard: if a result is not accurate at the polling unit, it will not go to IReV at all," he said.

"The moment a result appears on IReV, citizens can trust what they see."

He expressed hope that these safeguards will remove differences between polling unit results and the figures shown at collation centres.

Mr Amupitan also highlighted insecurity, logistics, and result management as the three main issues INEC will focus on before the 2027 elections.

INEC has set the presidential and National Assembly elections for 16 January 2027. The governorship and state Houses of Assembly elections will take place on 6 February 2027.