Why Electronic Voting Can Be A Solution To Election Manipulation.

[Jubilee58]

Am not talking about the use of electronic machines on pulling units during an election, but a process where you can cast your vote from your place of convenience or residence by possibly by logging in into the INEC server using your electronic gadgets such as your phone or even laptop. This process will enable more transparency in the electoral system because every Nigerian will be well updated about the status of every election including the presidential election.

The server will be designed in such a way that the various political parties for that election will be included there, and when you cast your vote for a particular candidate or party you see it counting for that your candidate including the the votes of other people. This way, voters or citizens will no longer gather in pulling units, and there won't be anything like hijacking of ballot boxes or any kind of assault on voters. Furthermore, this result will be visible to every Nigerian, and the winner will be already known even before the announcement or result declaration.

What the INEC body only have to do is result pronunciation, and winner's declaration, and this way the right candidate or the citizens choice will emerge.
This will also reduce politicians giving money to citizens to vote for them because you are probably voting in your privacy.

I believe if this kind of initiative is deployed into Nigeria electoral system, the voting system or arena will be completely free, and fair .

What is your take on this?

[Livingleged]

People will always think If INEC can build a system where we all can use our smartphones to vote from our various houses will be better. But thats not the reality, because the country isn’t ready for that. This system of voting can only be done in a developed country and not a country like Nigeria.
Internet services is still a trash in many areas of this country how do those people vote count in realtime ?

Let also talk about power, that also Abi dilemma in some areas people can’t even access internet due to power failure. And remember that you only know just your cycle, I can assure you that millions of Nigerians do not have smartphone how do those people vote count vote?

Online voting will attract hackers based on interests of who got more money to pay to the hackers and it could be done very easily in private after all its the big men we are talking about here.

Just with the BVAS they couldn’t upload real time results because of bad internet service in some areas now you want everything done on realtime, it’s not possible as of now.

It would have need a good idea but we are not there yet, voter card and physical presence at the polling units still seems to give better Proofs and watching eyes. Voting from home will be worse than what we have now

[Karl_3000]

This will not be good because people may be able to use it to manipulate which is what you want to avoid in the first place. Another thing is that some people may not have the device needed to vote at home.

Some people do not have internet where they are living.

The polling unit is very important, but I will prefer the one that no one will be needed to do the counting at the polling unit. Every vote should be automatically submitted.

[Nicho-brown]

As a people, as a country and as a person. I humbly subscribe the electronic voting and my reason is are simple.
1. We all know how voters are being treated in the pulling units by haired bad boys.
2. We all know how electoral ballot box are being snatched from unknown gun men at the pulling units.
3. We all know how people sustain injuries and many dies in the voting ground.
So to curv and avoid all these listed occurrence, E-Voting  can help us escape all these happenings and our votes can be counted appropriately by the INEC body without compromised.

[Josefjix]

Move topic to politics and society, OP

So to curv and avoid all these listed occurrence, E-Voting  can help us escape all these happenings and our votes can be counted appropriately by the INEC body without compromised.

It will still be compromised through online voting, there is nothing they cannot do on the votes, the developers will be handled in such a way that votes on the sites will be fake, unautomated readings of votes while it's supposed to be automated. As vote clicks, the system reads and updates the public automatically. But developers will delay automation and update when votes finally over.

I don't trust any voting system in Nigeria, I don't.

[AmaGold70]

The voting system in Nigeria is actually a thing of great concern, considering how we are not ruled by the choice of the masses. We actually need a system that will work to ensure good voting system. In the case of electronic voting where privacy is enabled, I believe their could be some kind of reliability in that aspect, but another thing is that we are in a country where those in the political class feel they are above the law therefore they cannot do whatever they like. Which means they will make sure such system doesn't work because they understand it might not be favourable to them.

[ArabBTC]

Electronic voting would have been better, just that Nigeria as a country have not grown to that point yet technologically, let us tell ourselves the truth how many villages have stable network? If we want to transmit electronic once you vote, there will be regular network glitch that will delay the whole voting process and that will even give this politicians more opportunity to hack through the system and influence the process.

What Nigeria just needs is unity of purpose, everyone just have to come out and vote that day and also wait till it is counted, then take down every statistic per polling unit, then stay on alert, if INEC play any politics to manipulate the results then it is to start a revolution immediately, this politicians won’t do the right thing except they see force.

[Alvin_talk]

There are some down sides in this, first, so many elderly persons in Nigeria who don't have access to smart phones will miss out. Also some have smarts phone but don't know how to use it effectively.

Again, there is a possibility that the results can be manipulated if these corrupt politicians invest heavily on hackers. Maybe it will be better to have a composite system where people can vote physically if they wish and also electronically if they wish. Its all about convinience.

[Xackie]

Is there anything that can't be manipulated? The person that wants to rig can hire skilled IT folks and they hack the shit out of it. Even in the United state of America, President Trump is finding ways for his  citizens to return back to normal paper voting because he doesn't trust the electronic voting methods, especially when lost to joe biden.  It seems you have forgotten the kind of country you are living in, they will always have an alternatives to rig something.  Even if they introduce the electronic voting methods, who do think will be in control of the system, who has access to the database, and how the results will be transmitted.  For we to have anything like free and fair election, they must be some level of accountability and transparent between the leaders and people.

[Smartvirus]

The world as we have it now hasn’t gotten to that level of Civilization yet. Even America as e Dey so, them never Dey try that kind thing, talk more of our naija, way all these people way be say, election malpractices na their doings. No be say e no Dey other places like that too but, for here them Dey carry open eye run am.

The system you are proposing, I feel it’s going to have a lot of ways around it for manipulations o. E no hard these politicians to start to invest in gadgets, buy plenty phones for plenty people and those people way them Dey carry from Sudan, those Fulani people, carry gadget full their hand, create voters card and manipulate as them want.

One method that could work is, any pulling unit way violence Dey, just cancel am and make sure say, those people way cause wahala serve serious jail time. People go think twice before them carry ballot box.

This electronic card reader something can always work if them want am to. Na why every election, you go always hear say card reader get issues just to frustrate the process.

[Justbillywitt]

There are some down sides in this, first, so many elderly persons in Nigeria who don't have access to smart phones will miss out. Also some have smarts phone but don't know how to use it effectively.

Again, there is a possibility that the results can be manipulated if these corrupt politicians invest heavily on hackers. Maybe it will be better to have a composite system where people can vote physically if they wish and also electronically if they wish. Its all about convinience.

We keep talking about politicians investing heavily on hackers, do you know how much is the budget of INEC? Don’t you think that INEC can hire the best cybersecurity experts in the world? this talk of hackers is one thing that the politicians are using to talk done on the issue of electronic voting in Nigeria. There are countries that have been voting electronically for years now, how many times have we heard that hackers manipulated their online voting? If this people want it us to vote electronically in this country it will happen. All they have to do is keep a pooling boot for people that don’t have electronic devices, or people that can’t operate electronic devices.

[Africolo]

Am not talking about the use of electronic machines on pulling units during an election, but a process where you can cast your vote from your place of convenience or residence by possibly by logging in into the INEC server using your electronic gadgets such as your phone or even laptop. This process will enable more transparency in the electoral system because every Nigerian will be well updated about the status of every election including the presidential election.

The server will be designed in such a way that the various political parties for that election will be included there, and when you cast your vote for a particular candidate or party you see it counting for that your candidate including the the votes of other people. This way, voters or citizens will no longer gather in pulling units, and there won't be anything like hijacking of ballot boxes or any kind of assault on voters. Furthermore, this result will be visible to every Nigerian, and the winner will be already known even before the announcement or result declaration.

What the INEC body only have to do is result pronunciation, and winner's declaration, and this way the right candidate or the citizens choice will emerge.
This will also reduce politicians giving money to citizens to vote for them because you are probably voting in your privacy.

I believe if this kind of initiative is deployed into Nigeria electoral system, the voting system or arena will be completely free, and fair .

What is your take on this?

It's a good idea but at the same time the process will be abuse because we all know the country we are and what the politicians can do to get power, manipulations will still erupt from any kind of methods INEC wants to use to conduct the election because they have being appointment by the sitting President and they must work for him to become president for the second time and not work against him, besides this system was proposed by some members of the Senate and they refused to sign the bill into law because they know that they will be at advantage if it's done that way.

Majority of voters are not using a smart phone like the old men and women in the rural areas so it's going to be difficult as they won't be able to cast their votes, this are the disadvantages for the online electronic voting. Citizens can still be bribe during campaigns as they can share money to them during that period and ask them to vote for them, let's just hope for the better by casting our votes and stand by it to make sure it counts.

[Nwadiche]

Electronic voting would have been better, just that Nigeria as a country have not grown to that point yet technologically, let us tell ourselves the truth how many villages have stable network? If we want to transmit electronic once you vote, there will be regular network glitch that will delay the whole voting process and that will even give this politicians more opportunity to hack through the system and influence the process.

What Nigeria just needs is unity of purpose, everyone just have to come out and vote that day and also wait till it is counted, then take down every statistic per polling unit, then stay on alert, if INEC play any politics to manipulate the results then it is to start a revolution immediately, this politicians won’t do the right thing except they see force.

You made some points, the thing there's not that Nigeria haven't grown to that point of using electronics voting. Nigeria has all it takes to use electronics voting, but our bad politicians with their selfish interest doesn't want such machine because they already know that using electronics voting must of them won't get into power. So the only way is to prevent it, even they're the cause why some villages are still experiencing bad network, if they plan well for their citizens i don't see why some places will still be facing network problem.

The problem Nigeria is having today is tribalism, if only tribalism can be put aside believe Nigeria will be a good country. Due to different languages Nigeria youths are not United, so politicians use this tribalism to manipulate election with the INEC chairman from the states government's to federal level. What Nigeria youths need is come out massively cast their votes, let them be there and count the votes together.

[Marvelockg]

Am not talking about the use of electronic machines on pulling units during an election, but a process where you can cast your vote from your place of convenience or residence by possibly by logging in into the INEC server using your electronic gadgets such as your phone or even laptop. This process will enable more transparency in the electoral system because every Nigerian will be well updated about the status of every election including the presidential election.

You are even going too far. let's bring it down to transmitting election result from the polling unit and see if it will be easy for manipulation of election result. If there are no physical centers where numbers of registered  voters can be seen as well as numbers of them that actually voted can be noted, then whatever mechanism you are bringing up will even encourage rigging to a large degree.

Our politicians only accepts innovation that comes with a loophole that allows for rigging any innovation that hinders them from rigging wont even go through the first stage of senate reading. i still believe that if transmission of result happens at the pulling unit, election manipulation will be reduced greatly.