The Senate has denied a report that it rejected the electronic transmission of election results during consideration of the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill.
The clarification came from the President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio, shortly after the upper chamber passed the bill following a marathon session lasting about 4-5 hours.
Consideration of the contentious amendment to Clause 60, Subsection 3, of the bill began at about 2pm and stretched until 6.26pm, fuelling speculation online that lawmakers had voted against mandatory electronic transmission of results.
However, news made the rounds that the Senate shot down a proposal that would have compelled presiding officers of the Independent National Electoral Commission to transmit results electronically from each polling unit to the INEC Result Viewing (IREV) portal in real time, after signing and stamping the prescribed result forms.
According to the reports, the Senate was said to have instead retained the existing provision of the Electoral Act, which states that the presiding officer shall transfer the results, including the total number of accredited voters and the results of the ballot, in a manner as prescribed by the Commission. Meanwhile, Akpabio insisted that the interpretation was misleading, stressing that the Senate did not remove electronic transmission from the law.
