By Shina Abubakar, Osogbo
The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Joash Amupitan, has said the commission’s mock accreditation exercise ahead of the August 15 Osun State governorship election helped identify and resolve a potential issue with the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), thereby preventing possible voter disenfranchisement.
Prof. Amupitan, who on Saturday monitored the exercise in 12 polling units across the state’s three senatorial districts, said the exercise served as an important quality assurance measure to test the commission’s technology under real election conditions.
Addressing journalists at the INEC office in Osogbo after the exercise, he disclosed that the major issue detected was the inability of some BVAS devices to recognise the facial images on older Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), particularly those issued in 2011.
According to him, the commission’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) team promptly addressed the problem by adjusting the BVAS similarity score to improve facial recognition for affected PVCs.
