The Senate on Tuesday amended Section 60 of the Electoral Act to allow presiding officers at polling units to electronically transmit election results to the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) Results Viewing Portal (IREV).
The amendment was approved during an emergency plenary session, with Senate President Godswill Akpabio outlining the procedure for the updated system.
“The presiding officer shall electronically transmit the results from each polling unit to the IREV portal after Form EC8A has been signed and stamped by the presiding officer, and/or countersigned by the candidates or polling agents where available at the polling units,” Akpabio stated.
He, however, clarified that a fallback mechanism would apply in the event of technical difficulties.
“Provided that if the electronic transmission of the results fails as a result of communication failure, the manually signed and stamped Form EC8A shall be the primary source of collation and declaration of results,” he added.
The amendment, adopted as Clause 60(3), followed a motion by Senate Chief Whip Mohammed Monguno seeking to reverse the Senate’s earlier rejection of real-time electronic transmission of results.
The Senate had previously retained provisions of the 2023 Electoral Act that limited electronic transmission. With the new amendment, presiding officers may transmit results electronically where technology permits, while the manually signed Form EC8A remains the authoritative document in cases of system failure.
The decision sparked debate on the Senate floor, with Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe initially calling for a division before later withdrawing his request.