Look Before Leaping, A Cautious Note on Nigeria’s E-Voting

Abstract

Both institutional and procedural uncertainties have marred electoral practices and resulted into gross misconduct in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic. In 2015, the Smart Card Reader (SCR) was introduced to Nigeria’s elections to verify and match the voter’s Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC) with the holder’s identity. The introduction was described as historic and avant garde by any electoral umpire in Nigeria’s electoral history. The SCR foiled different previous election rigging techniques that had earlier eluded manual checks. The SCR was not perfect but its introduction had begun to instill confidence into the electorate and given integrity to the democratic process. The outcome of SCR motivated the electorate and driven them to clamour for e-voting. This paper interrogates the trend by using a two-prong approach: First, by attempting to address e-voting through the trajectory of the general elections from 1999 till 2019. Second, by doing comparative analyses of e-voting system across some developed democracies. The methods revealed that fundamental clogs to e-voting in these developed democracies cannot be downplayed. The paper then argued that as much as Nigeria is eager to embark on electoral maturity, it must exercise restrain before adopting a comprehensive electronic voting system.