ELECTORAL ACT AMENDMENT BILL,2017.
Nigerias coat of arm Today, the Senate passed the Electoral Act No. 6 2010 (Amendment) Bill 2017 into law. The passage of this Bill in the Senate is a bold, innovative and common sense step on Electoral Reforms designed to guarantee free, fair and credible elections in Nigeria. Without much ado, these are some of the highlights of the Bill: 1. There shall now be full biometric accreditation of voters with Smart Card Readers and/or other technological devices, as INEC may introduce for elections from time to time. 2. Presiding Officers must now instantly transmit accreditation data and results from Polling Units to various collation centers. Presiding officer who contravene this shall be imprisoned for at least 5 years (no option of fine). 3. All Presiding Officer must now first record accreditation data and polling results on INEC’s prescribed forms before transmitting them. The data/result recorded must be the same with what they transmitted. 4. INEC now has unfettere...