The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has introduced new technical safeguards to prevent inaccurate election results and figures indicating over-voting from being uploaded to its Result Viewing Portal (IReV) during the 2027 general elections.
The commission said the measures were developed following an assessment of the 2023 general elections, which exposed weaknesses in the management and collation of results and significantly undermined public confidence in the electoral process.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Joash Amupitan, disclosed this on Thursday during a high-level dialogue at Chatham House in London, organised in partnership with the Kimpact Development Initiative (KDI).
The discussion was held under the theme, ‘Nigeria’s 2027 Elections: Democratic Trajectory and Regional Stability Beyond the Ballot’.
Amupitan explained that the commission’s post-election assessment identified collation centres, rather than polling units, as the major source of irregularities in result management during the 2023 elections.
He said the new validation mechanism would ensure that results containing discrepancies or figures suggesting over-voting would be rejected before reaching the IReV platform.
“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,” he said.
The INEC chairman added that the system was designed to eliminate inconsistencies between results recorded at polling units and figures subsequently presented during collation.
“The moment a result appears on IReV, citizens can trust what they see. By eliminating inconsistencies at the source, collation will become a transparent formality,” he stated.
Acknowledging the damage caused by the controversies surrounding the 2023 presidential election, Amupitan admitted that the commission had yet to fully recover from the resulting loss of public confidence.
He appealed to Nigerians to give his leadership an opportunity to restore confidence in the electoral body, insisting that improvements recorded in recent off-cycle elections demonstrated its commitment to credible polls.
As part of the preparations, he announced that INEC would conduct a nationwide mock accreditation and voting exercise on November 28 to test its upgraded technology and electronic transmission of results ahead of the general elections.
According to him, the exercise will simulate the presidential election and enable the commission to identify and address possible technical challenges before the actual polls.
On improvements to the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), Amupitan disclosed that INEC had procured additional devices and reduced the maximum number of registered voters assigned to each machine from 1,250 to 850.
Polling units with more than 850 registered voters will receive additional devices to prevent congestion and delays during accreditation.
He also revealed that the commission was constructing climate-controlled storage facilities across the states to protect BVAS equipment from extreme temperatures and storage-related malfunctions, which affected some devices during the 2023 elections.
The INEC chairman identified insecurity, logistics and result management as the three major challenges facing the commission ahead of the 2027 elections.
He assured Nigerians that the commission was working with relevant security agencies and other stakeholders to address potential threats to the electoral process.
The development comes as INEC intensifies preparations for the next general elections, with the credibility of electronic result transmission remaining a major issue following the controversy surrounding the 2023 presidential election.
The presidential and National Assembly elections are scheduled for January 16, 2027, while governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections will hold on February 6.
