NANFeatures/Vol.11/No.11/2017 (Jan. 12)
Using election observers for electoral credibility
A News Analysis by Femi Ogunshola, News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)
Analysts opine that reports on election observations have proved that they serve as a potent tool for strengthening democratic governance and add value to the electoral process.
They note further that such observations are integral parts of processes of providing good governance, emphasising the need for more partnership of electoral umpire with election observers.
One of such partners is the Youth Initiative for Advocacy Growth and Advancement that participated in the recently concluded governorship election in Ondo State as an observer group.
In spite of the noticeable importance of the exercise however, pundits note that observers have not engaged enough scientific methods to convince the public more on its significance.
In the light of this observation, Mr Paul James, an election observer, noted that achieving quality electoral process through statistical method would boost the activities of the observers in elections.
According to him, the methods such as Quick Count methodology or the Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) where observers are randomly distributed across sample polling units and send short message code of what they observe will complement the exercise.
James said that the deployment of PVT in observing election was first tested in the 2011 presidential election and six gubernatorial elections in Borno, Kano, Plateau, Imo, Oyo State and Delta.
He said “PVT is an advanced observation methodology that uses well established statistical principles and sophisticated information technology.
“It provides the most timely and accurate information on the conduct of voting and counting, and is the only observation methodology that can independently verify the accuracy of official Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) election results.’’
Mr Samson Itodo, Executive Director, Youth Initiative for Advocacy Growth and Advancement, said that the initiative adopted PVT methodology to observe the governorship election in the Nov. 26, 2016 governorship election in Ondo State.
He noted that 340 stationary and 23 observers were deployed to randomly sample 300 polling units across the 18 local governments in the state.
He observed that if INEC’s official results fell within the observers’ estimated range, then the public, political parties and candidates should have confidence that the official results would reflect the ballots cast at polling units.
He added that the group observation also revealed that card readers were used throughout accreditation in 96 per cent of polling units.
Appraising PVT method in election observation, Mrs Amina Zakari, National Commissioner in charge of Electoral Operations of INEC, said the method showed reports in agreement with the commission’s results.
“We are very excited to see that a group was tracking the Ondo governorship election’s results at various polling units and the result has very thin difference with our own.
“We also had an e-track monitoring system, we have been monitoring our elections online and we have seen the trend, what we have online and what is announced has no significant difference.
“This is because from 2010 to 2011, there has been improvement on our electoral processes; we have been monitoring and managing the elections from a more scientific perspective.
“For Ondo State, INEC needs to be commended because this is the first time we delivered election materials fully; election materials arrived in all the local governments, even in Ilaje’’ (riverine areas), he said.
She called on called on Civil Society Organisations monitoring electoral processes in the country to watch the conducts of politicians who he said were cardinal to the success of elections at all levels.
He also assured the public that the electoral body would continue to partner with all the stakeholders to further improve electoral process in the country through observations and other scientific methods.
Mr Ezenwa Nwagwu, Chairman, Partners for Electoral Reforms, said “the police and other security agencies should further open their doors for Civil Society Organisations in observing elections’’.
He noted that this would strengthen engagements and partnership to enhance better electoral system in the country.
In her view, Mrs Cynthia Mbamalu, Project Director of the observers’ group, commended the electoral body for an improved electoral process in the country.
She noted that the group’s report on Ondo State election poll indicated that the result of the election reflected the wishes of the people of the state.
She also noted that challenges observed by his group were not enough to discredit the poll as there was improvement in both logistic, card readers’ functionality, conducts of the security and INEC personnel and timely distribution of election materials, among others.
Mbamalu, nonetheless, called for welfare of the security personnel monitoring elections, saying their conduct could also determine the outcome of elections.(NANFeatures)
**If used, please credit the writer as well as News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)