The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will conduct a nationwide mock accreditation and voting exercise on November 28 to test its preparations for the 2027 general elections.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Joash Amupitan, announced this on Thursday during a dialogue at Chatham House in London, organised in partnership with the Kimpact Development Initiative.
He said the exercise would simulate the presidential election and test the commission's upgraded voting technology, particularly voter accreditation and electronic transmission of results.
“On the 28th of this month, we will conduct a mock accreditation and voting exercise across all states of the federation to simulate the presidential election and verify that we have gotten both accreditation and electronic result transmission right,” Amupitan said.
The commission is also introducing new safeguards to prevent inaccurate polling unit results and figures indicating over-voting from being uploaded to its Result Viewing Portal, IReV.
“We have now devised a technical safeguard: if a result is not accurate at the polling unit, it will not go to IReV at all,” the chairman said.
He added, “The moment a result appears on IReV, citizens can trust what they see.”
Amupitan said INEC had also upgraded its Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) to address technical problems experienced during the 2023 elections.
He disclosed that the commission had reduced the maximum number of registered voters assigned to each BVAS device from 1,250 to 850.
Polling units with more voters would receive additional devices.
The chairman identified insecurity, logistics and result management as major challenges facing the commission ahead of the elections.
The presidential and National Assembly elections are scheduled for January 16, 2027, while governorship and state assembly elections will hold on February 6.
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