The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) yesterday explained that the 30,000 new polling units across the country were created from existing voting points for the purpose of easing the logistic challenges of the commission.
INEC further stated that the new polling units were previously known as voting points and were appendages to existing previously polling units.
This was contained in an paid advertorial by the Commission published in today’s edition of Vanguard. Throwing more light on how the voting points were established and why the need to discard them arose, the Commission stated that “Since 2011 the Commission has employed the strategy of breaking large polling units into manageable structures known as voting points. Under this arrangement, large polling units are
disaggregated into multiples of 300 registered voters per voting point- with a polling unit having multiples of voting points depending on the overall population of voters.
These voting points were not autonomous units; they remained integral to respective polling units” According to the advertorial, the commission observed that these voting points elicited the suspicion of political parties which accused the Commission of secretly creating addition polling units adding that whereas the Electoral Act provides that there should be only one party agent per polling unit, some of the parties requested that they should have agents at all voting points.
The Commission further explained that another reason why addition polling units were created was because as presently constituted, the entire country would require the deployment of 250,000 electronic card readers which would have a huge cost implication for INEC.
According to the document: ” In order to address all the aforementioned challenges. INEC decided to reconfigure
the polling units and increase the number from the present 119, 973 units to 150,000 polling units. The guiding principles for the reconfiguration Include; Polling units Will be located as much as possible in enclosures ( classrooms and halls of public schools, institutions, community centres town halls). In open spaces, tents or canopies will be erected.
A public Institution that accommodates more one polling unit will be designated as a Polling Station; Polling units will be located within a reasonable distance to voters – a maximum radius of 1 kilometre in urban areas and 2- kilometer radius in rural areas; Each polling unit will have a maximum of 500 registered voters. In effect additional polling units will be created out of those presently having more than 500 registered voters in
multiples thereof; polling units will be located In secure places that provide for easy deployment of staff equipment and materials: as well as places that allow effective and unhindered management of polling day activities.;? Where existing polling units are located In places not Suitable, they Will be relocated to appropriate sites; ? emerging settlements With substantial voting age population will be considered for the establishment of new polling units. The Commission dismissed claims made by a group identified as Electoral Integrity Network adding that “The post-AFIS population of registered voters has been adopted as the valid baseline for the total number of
polling units created “because that is the existing number of identifiable voters. Those who failed the business rules
and do not have their permanent voters cards yet are ordinarily expected to re-present themselves for registration.”
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