2023: INEC to test BVAS with mock accreditation

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will test the integrity of its Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAs) through mock accreditation ahead of next month’s elections.

The INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, stated this during a media briefing at the Chatham House in London on Tuesday.

He said the mock accreditation exercise would take place across selected polling units in the country.

Yakubu revealed that each BVAS device installed across the 774 local government areas in the country had undergone testing to ascertain the fitness for the election.

He said: “We have the machines for the 2023 elections but we didn’t want to take chances. Each and every machine has been tested and confirmed functional. For the last two weeks, our officials were in the 36 states of the federation testing these machines, and the functionality is simply encouraging.

“The second thing we’re going to do, and pretty soon, is to conduct mock accreditation exercise nationwide ahead of the elections. We won’t wait until the main elections come, we will test the integrity of these machines with real-life voters in selected polling units across the country.

READ ALSO: INEC warns politicians on plots to bypass BVAs in 2023 elections

“We did so in Ekiti and Osun, it was fantastic and we’re going to do so nationwide. Increasingly our people are becoming more excited about the deployment of this technology and we’re really happy.

“Also in terms of the numbers of these BVAS machines, we always make provision in case of malfunction or glitches. There is always a backup. We have IReV technical support that will fix the machines in the unlikely event of any glitches.

“However, where it fails to function completely in a polling unit, from previous experience there were isolated polling units, the law has a remedy that the commission should re-mobilise and re-conduct elections in the affected polling units within 24 hours, so we are really, really comfortable where we are.”

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