INEC: 200,000 BVAS will be deployed for 2023 elections

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it will deploy over 200,000 bimodal voter accreditation systems (BVAS) for the 2023 general election.

Festus Okoye, the INEC national commissioner on information and voter education, said this in a statement on Saturday.

Okoye said the BVAS would be deployed in the 176,000 polling units across the country, while the excess would be kept as reserve.

“We will have one BVAS reserve in every registration area centre (RAC) to ensure immediate intervention in case of any failure,” he said.

He said July 31 deadline for continuous voter registration (CVR) remains sacrosanct.

He added that technical officers would be on standby at every RAC to attend to any technical issues that could arise during the polls.

“The chairman of the commission, Prof. Mahmud Yakubu, has assured Nigerians that this commission is determined to conduct good elections to make sure that votes count. The commission will deploy technology to obviate human interferences to undermine its efforts,” Okoye said.

The INEC commissioner said about 7.8 million of the 11 million Nigerians that had completed their registration were between 18 and 34 years old.

Okoye added that as of July 25, INEC’s record showed that about 28.5 million prospective voters registered online.

He said the figure included fresh registrants and those for transfers, destroyed, defaced and lost voter cards.

He also said the commission had integrated persons with disabilities (PWDs) into the electoral process.