‘Provision for card readers, spending limits for candidates’ — senate passes electoral act amendment

October 23, 2018 4:54 pm

The senate has passed a bill amending the electoral act.

The bill was passed on Tuesday after Suleiman Nazif, chairman of the committee on INEC, presented a report on the floor of the senate.

In August, President Muhammadu Buhari rejected the bill because of some issues the lawmakers failed to address during revision to the bill.

After addressing the concerns of the president, the bill was reintroduced and subsequently passed.

Senate President Bukola Saraki had asked the committee to take note of the observations made when the bill was deliberated upon to be passed the second time.

While presenting the report, Nazif said all the issues raised by the president had been “captured and addressed.”

Clause 14 amends section 49 (4) of the act that deals with the failure of a card reader.

“Where a smart card reader deployed for accreditation of voters fails to function in a polling unit and a fresh card reader is not deployed three hours before the close of the election in that unit, then the election shall not hold but be rescheduled and conducted within 24 hours, provided that where the total possible votes from all the affected card readers in the units or unit does not affect the overall result in the constituency or election concerned,” the report read.

The lawmakers were accused of removing this clause.

Clause 24 amends section 87 (13) of the act deals with the deadline for primary elections.

The report said the dates of the primary polls shall not be earlier than 150 days and not later than 90 days before the date of election to the elective offices.

Clause 32 amends section 140 (4) of the act that deals with the omission of name of candidate or logo of a political party.

It states that if at the point of display or distribution of ballot papers, a candidate or an agent name or logo of is omitted, candidate will notify the commission and it shall rectify and fix another date not later 90 days.

The bill pegged spending limits for presidential, gubernatorial, senatorial and house of reps candidates at N5 billion, N1 billion, N250 million and N150 million respectively.

The senators passed the amendment after a clause-by-clause consideration of the bill.