IVED will remove PVC fraud Says INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) revealed that the introduction of the INEC Voter Enrolment Device (IVED) will eliminate acts of fraud with Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), making Nigeria’s electoral process more efficient.

This was disclosed by INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu in a meeting with media executives on Tuesday in Abuja, reported by the News Agency of Nigeria.

INEC revealed the IVED system will be the new voter verification device, adding that despite the ongoing voter registration process, the commission is working round the clock to improve service delivery and credible voter accreditation during elections in Nigeria.

The INEC boss said innovations made by the commission include the introduction of machine-readable Permanent Voter Card (PVC) and the Smart Card Reader (SCR) as well as uploading of polling unit results in real-time on election day.

Yakubu revealed that observers called on INEC to improve voter accreditation during elections, citing the use of incident forms where the SCR failed to authenticate the fingerprints of voters.

“Such concern is legitimate given the fact that the SCR successfully verifies any card that belongs to the polling unit for which it is configured irrespective of who presents it,” he said.

“Their apprehension, therefore, is that by using the incident form to cover those whose fingerprints are not authenticated by the SCR, a voter may be able to use another person’s PVC to vote during an election.”

He revealed that INEC launched the facial biometric authentication during accreditation using the Z-Pad tablet to complement the fingerprint process through the Card Reader, before the Edo governorship election in September 2020.

“However, the Commission was not satisfied with the pilot held in the Nasarawa Central State Constituency by-election a month earlier in August 2020,” he said.

“We, therefore, suspended the idea to enable us to do some innovations; so the Z-pad was therefore only used to upload Polling Unit results to the IReV portal during elections.”