Unboxing INEC’s PVC card reader

On Saturday, Nigerians will be voting to either elect a new president or re-elect President Goodluck Jonathan. While most argument is on the candidate, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is aggressively deploying technology this time. It is in form of a previously-unused-gadget called the PVC card reader.

Since many Nigerians don’t know much about the gadget, DonRaph is revealing the available information about the device that will put the ability of technology to make elections in Nigeria to be transparent.

Voters’ Details

INEC officials have revealed that each device has the capacity for the details of about 750 voters which means it can only verify the details of the voters whose data have been entered into the device. The implication of this is that ballot papers, voters card and the device must be in sync before a voter is allowed to vote.

Furthermore, snatching any of the three is no longer enough for those that rely on rigging.

Battery life

INEC said each device has a battery life of twelve hours which means the device will not go off since elections will be conducted between 9am and 4pm. This seems to be quite ideal for Nigeria’s electoral system since electricity supply is a major issue in the country.

SMS capability

Unlike before when results are collated at polling stations, then sent to ward, local government, state INEC office and transmitted to Abuja, each device can be used to send election results directly to INEC’s result collation center which means those that rely on the middlemen, linkages and exchanges to rig elections may have to re-strategize.

Furthermore, since there is limit to the number of voters’ details on each device, it will be very difficult for those that plan to add strange ballot boxes to the pool to do so.

Thumb print

Before an individual is allowed to vote, the thumb print is taken with the device and it must match with the one on the PVC, which simply means that those that are already stealing PVCs may as well start stealing thumbs too.

Experts believe INEC is adopting the voting model used by Kenya in its last election while copying some aspects of Ghana’s since the later did not incorporate SMS.

Kenyan voters were to identify themselves biometrically and to ensure complete transparency each returning officer would transmit the results, using handsets provided by the country’s biggest mobile phone network, directly to a giant screen at the tallying center in Nairobi.