Geo-coding of Voter’s Residential Address: A Panacea to Election Malpractice in Jos South LGA of Plateau State, Nigeria

Abstract

According to NSGIC’s Geo-Enabled Elections project 2017-2019, transiting from the un-verifiable election method to Geographic Information System (GIS), elections management requires a sound plan, effort, and resolve. The inherent technical capacity of GIS visualization and analytical advantages involves replacing non-spatial ‘voter’s address file’ systems with election district and voter location data in a GIS format. But in practice, it require some additional investment, technology and resolve to answer the most frequently asked question from the electorates ‘If the election management body (INEC) in Nigeria knows the geographic locations of their voters’. This task of-course require a relentless efforts from INEC and building the staff capacities continuously. The file geodatabase of point attribute data set of all voters in the study was exported to ArcMap of ArcGIS into the geo-coder, where parameters were set for both urban and rural at prompt. The result on a spread-sheet format revealed name of each voter, the demographic characteristics, location (in terms of latitude and longitude) and shortest or nearest voting point. This reduces to a great extent multiple voting, reduce apathy and help INEC plan effectively.