INEC: 50 percent of fresh registrants invalid, delisted

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has detected more invalid entries in its ongoing cleanup of the recently concluded Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise.

Festus Okoye, INEC’s Commissioner for Information and Voter Education Committee, disclosed this in a news release on Monday.

According to Okoye, the discovery is different from the 1,126,359 invalid registrations captured by INEC’s Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) during the cleanup of enrollments done between June 28 2021 and January 14, 2022.

The electoral umpire had in April 2022 announced that 45 percent of the 2,523,458 completed registrations were found to be invalid due to double registrations and incomplete data.

The commission had lamented that the development was worrisome due to the time and resources committed to the CVR exercise.

Okoye said the fresh invalid registrations were detected from entries done between January 15 and July 31, 2022.

The statement reads: “As Nigerians are aware, the cleaning up of the register of voters using the Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) is ongoing since the suspension of the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) on 31st July 2022.

“Earlier, the Commission informed Nigerians that out of the 2, 523,458 (Two million, five hundred and twenty-three thousand, four hundred and fifty-eight) fresh registrants that registered between 28th June 2021 and 14th January 2022, 1,126,359 (One million, one hundred and twenty-six thousand, three hundred and fifty-nine) records were found to be invalid and consequently delisted.

“The ABIS for the period – 15th January to 31st July 2022 is almost completed. Several double, multiple and ineligible registrants have also been detected and invalidated. These include entries that fail to meet the Commission’s business rules. The Commission takes this responsibility seriously because a credible register is at the heart of electoral integrity.

“As soon as the process is concluded, the Commission will provide the public with full information as usual. Thereafter, valid registrants will be added to the existing national register of voters before publishing same nationwide for scrutiny, claims and objections by citizens as required by section 19 (1) of the Electoral Act 2022.

“We reassure Nigerians that a thorough process is being undertaken to clean up the registration data. Similarly, Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs) for all valid registrants will be available for collection by the end of October/early November as promised.”