As Controversy Trails Electronic Voting in Kaduna

CICERO/Report

With the desperation by politicians to undermine the use of electronic voting machines in the recent Kaduna State local government elections, John Shiklam writes that the adoption of the voting system will only make the desired impact on the electoral process if politicians play according to the rules

On September 4, 2021, the Kaduna State Government conducted local government elections using its upgraded electronic voting machines (EVMs).

The first experiment with the technology was conducted in 2018 after the Kaduna State Independent Electoral Commission Act No. 10 of 2012 was amended to provide for the use of the EVMs.

The recent polls were supposed to be an improvement on the elections in 2018.

Though polls were an improvement on the 2018 experiment, they were characterised by low voter turnout and pockets of violence in some places.

For instance in Giwa and Igabi LGAs, several of voting machines were reportedly snatched by hoodlums, a development which was confirmed by the Kaduna State Independent Electoral Commission (KADSIECOM), Dr. Saratu Audu-Dikko, at a briefing with journalists in Kaduna.

“Thirty EVMs were carted away at Kwarau in the Igabi Local Government Area, with two destroyed, while nine others at Panhauya, Giwa Local Government Area, were equally vandalised.

“The hoodlums also carted away election materials and assaulted the driver and staff of the commission conveying the materials,”she explained.

Some of the EVMs machines were said to have been taken to the wrong polling units while others did not function, thereby causing hitches in the process.

Of the results released by SIECOM returning officers at the headquarters of the 17 out of the 19 council areas where elections held, the ruling APC won the chairmanship elections in 15 LGAs while the PDP won in two.

Interestingly, Governor Nasir El-Rufai, lost to the PDP in his Angwan Sarki 001 polling unit, a defeat which some observers attributed to the effectiveness of the use of the upgraded EVMs.

The SIECOM Chairperson, Dr.Saratu Dikko- Audu, said with the machines, it would be difficult for elections to be rigged. Giving insight on how the machine functions, she said, it is powered with a battery, which last up to 16 hours in the field, in addition to the provision of a generator.

According to her, the machine responds to authorisation card that gives the voter access to the voting platform, adding that the platform will not open for actual voting until it sees and recognises permanent voter’s card that belongs to the voter.

“When the machine sees and recognises the card, it will open the voting page for the voter. The first page is for election of chairman.

“The logos of all the political parties of candidates that are contesting the election are on the page. The voter is required to indicate the logo of the party of the candidate he wants to vote for by touching the screen.

“When he does that, the logo will be enlarged so that he can confirm that it is the party he is voting for. He will then press a green button, showing ‘Ok’”, she said.

She explained further that the machine has a transparent window by the left through which a paper trail is generated for the vote cast.

She said the machine does not accept voting with the same card more than once.

“If you have voted and you try to vote again, the machine recognises the voter’s card and tells you that you had already voted. That will stop multiple voting”, she explained.

According to her, at the end of the election, the machine prints out a summary of results for both chairmanship and councillorship.

“If the agents feel this is not the number of votes recorded on the machine, they can open the ballot box, sort out the paper trails and count them.

“The results are printed in 10 copies; so, the party agents and security agents will have a copy each. The results are transmitted to our server here in Kaduna; it is also stored on a USB.

“So, you have four levels where the results is stored- the paper trail, summary of results, the memory on the machines, the USB and the transmission to SIECOM headquarters.

“So it will be hard for anyone to rig an election by changing all those four values. Ten people also have the results. We tested the machines across the state and they work very well”, she said.

El-Rufai, who is the first governor to introduce technology to the electoral process, said the fact that the PDP defeated him in his polling unit showed that the APC did not manipulate the e-voting machines.

He dismissed allegations by the PDP that the machines were programmed to favour the APC, maintaining that the outcome of the election showed that the APC did not interfere with the programming of the electronic voting machines.

“Those that reported that the machines were programmed were ashamed when it was reported that APC lost in my polling unit.

“People were laughing that I lost my polling unit, but it is democracy that won,” the governor said in a live television interview.

El-Rufai, had while speaking to journalists shortly after casting his vote, harped on the need to deploy technology in the conduct of elections.

He said: “Technology is the key to minimising cheating in elections and unless we removed cheating in elections, we will never have credible leaders, we will never have accountable leaders and this is why we are committed to this”.

According to him, there has been a significant improvement on the machines compared with the ones used in the 2018 LG polls, stressing that the improved voting machine being used for the elections made it nearly impossible to do multiple voting which, according to him, “happened a lot in 2018.”

He said: “What we have shown in Kaduna is that it is possible to do this across Nigeria and I think INEC is looking at the experiment in Kaduna very closely.”

However, the opposition PDP lamented that even with the EVMs, the election was not free and fair, insisting that the APC manipulated the process. It also accused the SIECOM of allegedly allowing the replacement of trained ad-hoc staff with untrained people to operate the machines, adding that this was responsible for the malfunctioning of the EVMs in many polling units.

The state Chairman of the party, Mr. Hassan Hyat, in an interview with THISDAY, commended El-Rufai for introducing EVM to ensure credible elections. He, however, regretted that the governor did not ensure the strict use of the machines.

“As far as we are concerned, let me commend the governor for introducing electronic voting machine. To me, it is a good innovation, but unfortunately he didn’t follow up in the next step in terms of ensuring its utilisation”.

The PDP also alleged that some of the machines were programmed with results in favour of the APC.

“In Barnawa we brought an instance where a machine was reading APC 186 votes against PDP with 82 votes while voting was yet to even commence. The same thing happened during the 2018 elections,” Hyat alleged.

He said SIECOM trained ad-hoc staff on how to operate the machines, “but when it was time to deploy them to the polling units, different names came up and therefore the machines were not functional in many polling units across the state.”

The PDP chairman said “the governor must take responsibility for this in the sense that that there are allegations that the Local Government Electoral Officers of SIECOM, changed the names of those who were trained as adhoc staff.”

Hyat said: “Where those who were trained were allowed to work, the machines worked successfully.”

He further alleged that “government officials and officials APC officials went behind the governor and forced the Electoral Officers to replace the names of those who were trained for the job with their untrained cronies and that brought the whole mess to the system.”

Hyat said the “PDP is very proud of the results that went through the right process, but the results that didn’t go through the right process, we completely condemn it and say that it should not stand.

“For instance, in Sanga LGA, our agents were not even allowed to go near polling units; they were chased away by heavily armed security men including soldiers.

“Sanga is the local government where the deputy governor comes from; so, she takes responsibility for that.”

According to him, the introduction of electronic voting in Kaduna, showed that there is a great prospect of conducting elections electronically in Nigeria.

“I am sure INEC must be studying what is happening in Kaduna and all the lapses and areas of concern so that they can address them in the conduct of their elections.

“We cannot continue to conduct elections manually in this era of technological advancement; it has to be by electronic means”, Hyat said.

The PDP chairman called on SIECOM to ensure that only those trained to operate the machines are deployed to conduct elections in the remaining five of the 23 LGAs which were scheduled for September 25 due to security concerns.

Efforts to speak with the state APC Chairman, Mr. Emmanuel Jekada was unsuccessful as he did not respond to telephone calls. The state secretary of the party, Yayaha Pate, could not be reached as his telephone line was not connecting.

The spokesperson of SIECOM, Mrs. Hajara Pyeng declined to respond to allegations by the PDP that ad-hoc staff trained by commission were replaced by government and APC officials, saying she cannot talk on any issue.

“I don’t have any authority to talk. You cannot talk to anybody until when the commission wants to talk to you; they will invite the press”, Pyeng said on telephone.

Nigerians have been yearning for the electronic voting to curb fraudulent electoral practices by desperate politicians.

The Kaduna experiment has the prospects to transform the electoral system as new innovations would continue to be explored for continuous improvement.

However, electronic voting alone will not bring about the desired change in the nation’s electoral process if politicians do not change their crude and lawless attitudes and play according to the rules.

One of greatest obstacles to the evolution of transparent and credible electoral process in Nigeria is the desperation by politicians to grab power at all costs.

This accounted for the efforts by politicians to frustrate the use of the machines in the Kaduna local government polls.