By Nchetachi Chukwuajah
The Senate has voted against a proposal seeking to compel the electronic transmission of election results, rejecting an amendment to Clause 60(3) of the Electoral Amendment Bill.
The proposed amendment was debated during plenary on Wednesday, February 4, after which the Senate passed the Electoral Act 2022 (Repeal and Reenactment) Amendment Bill 2026 through the third reading.
The amendment aims to make it compulsory for presiding officers of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to transmit polling unit results electronically to the INEC Result Viewing (IREV) portal in real time.
Under the proposal, transmission would occur after results had been entered on the prescribed Form EC8A, signed and stamped by the presiding officer, and countersigned by party agents.
However, during Wednesday’s plenary, lawmakers declined to adopt the provision and instead retained the existing wording of the Electoral Act.
The current law gives INEC the discretion to determine how results are transmitted. It 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.”
By rejecting the amendment, the Senate effectively preserved INEC’s authority to decide the mode of results transmission, rather than making electronic upload to the IREV portal a statutory requirement.
In his closing remarks, the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, however, denied the Senate’s rejection of the electronic transmission of results, saying that “electronic transmission has always been in our Act.”
“What we did was retain the existing provision, which already makes provision for electronic transmission,” he added.
He further stated that there was no attempt to delay or frustrate the passage of the Electoral Act.
The Senate had earlier rejected a proposed 10-year jail term for buyers and sellers of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) under Clause 22 of the Electoral Amendment Bill, opting instead to retain a two-year imprisonment term while increasing the fine from N2 million to N5 million.
The Red Chamber also amended Clause 28 on the notice of election, reducing the timeline from 360 days to 180 days.
The original provision required the commission to publish a notice of election in each state of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) not later than 360 days before the election date.
In Clause 29, the Senate reduced the timeline for political parties to submit lists of candidates and their affidavits from 180 days to 90 days.
The amended provision states that “every political party shall, not later than 90 days before the date appointed for a general election under this Act, submit to the Commission, in the prescribed forms, the list of the candidates the party proposes to sponsor at the elections, who shall have emerged from valid primaries conducted by the political party.”
The Senate also retained the provision on the format of ballot papers contained in Clause 44.
Under the clause, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is required, not later than 20 days before an election, to invite in writing any political party that nominated a candidate to inspect its identity on samples of relevant electoral materials.
Political parties are allowed to respond in writing within two days, indicating approval or disapproval of how their identity appears on the samples.
The Senate replaced smart card readers with the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for accreditation and voting under Clause 47.
However, after extensive debate, lawmakers rejected electronically generated voter identification and adopted the Permanent Voter Card as the mode of identification at polling units.
The upper legislative house also struck out Clause 142 on the effect of non-compliance, which provided that “it shall not be necessary for a party who alleges non-compliance with the provisions of this Bill for the conduct of elections to call oral evidence if originals or certified true copies of relevant documents manifestly disclose the non-compliance alleged.”
The provision was removed following arguments that it would amount to a waste of time in court.
