Abstract
There is no gainsaying that technology has drastically reduced incidences of electoral malpractices such as: ballot stuffing, result sheet mutilation, manipulations, over voting, alteration of result sheets and hijacking of ballot boxes in the history of Nigeria elections. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has employed a number of innovative approaches to improve the management and conduct of elections in the country. As years pass by, INEC gets more sophisticated with its technologies in order to meet up with international standard. Therefore, this paper examines the impact of these technologies and the effect they have on election activities in Nigeria from 1999 general election to 2017. Results show that the introduction of these technologies: Electronic Voters Register(EVR), Automatic Fingerprints Identification System (AFIS) and Smart Card Reader (SCR) have reduced the incidence of multiple registration and multiple voting to the barest minimum while the development of e-collation support platform has drastically reduced incidence of result manipulation at collation centres. Hence, it is believed that the incorporation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Nigeria electoral process has reduced excessive electoral fraud to the barest minimum and foster credible elections.
Highlights
Democratic societies are founded on the principles of elections and on opinion expression capabilities as observable in most political transitions
Research reveals that the usage of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in election has eliminated the incidents of multiple registrations, which had been one of the main political tools for rigging elections by unscrupulous and savage elements [4]
Some live processes were observed by the researcher on the field during elections with the aim to identifying all the technologies used by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from inception to 2017
Summary
Democratic societies are founded on the principles of elections and on opinion expression capabilities as observable in most political transitions. According to Kroeker and Yonck, the uses of information and communication technologies in recent times have become inevitable and fundamental to operations and activities of organizations and societies. Statistics Canada, opines that information and communication technology is a field of work and study that includes technologies such as the desktop and laptop computers, software, peripherals, and connections to internet primarily for information processing and communications functions. This conceptualization points to the fact that ICT involves the use of computer software and hardware to process information for both private and public use [3]. Research reveals that the usage of ICT in election has eliminated the incidents of multiple registrations, which had been one of the main political tools for rigging elections by unscrupulous and savage elements [4]
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