#EkitiDecides: 90-year-old Abigail Alofe, Others Stranded, Unable To Vote Over Failure Of BIVAS Machine At Polling Unit

Due to the failure of the newly-introduced Bi-Modal Voter Accreditation System (BIVAS) machines, at Unit 011, Ward 9, Oko Oro Ekiti, Ijero LGA, many voters have been stranded for hours and unable to vote in the ongoing governorship election in Ekiti State.One of them is Abigail Alofe, a 90-year-old woman. She told SaharaReporters that she had been at the polling unit for over 3 hours, stranded and hopeless.Similarly, an old man who identified himself as Steven Ajayi, chairman of the polling unit, confirmed to SaharaReporters that due to the failure of both fingerprints and facial recognition features of the BIVAS machines, many eligible voters have been denied the chance to cast their vote."The machine is not working at all, both facial and fingerprints. It denied many people the chance to vote. I am one of them. There are many people."I want to vote," the old man said emphatically when asked what he wanted in such a situation.BIVAS is said to capture three stages of the voting process: it acts as the Voter Enrolment Device (IVED) during voter registration and performs voter accreditation on Election Day.BIVAS is said to combine fingerprint and facial authentication to ensure the true identity of a prospective voter. Therefore, BIVAS performs the functions of both the Smart Card Reader and Z-Pad, as it is designed to ensure fingerprint authentication during the accreditation of voters and eliminate any need for the filing of incident forms.SaharaReporters earlier reported that voting had commenced in most polling units in the state.Sixteen candidates are on the ballot at 2,445 polling units. They include Oluwole Oluyede of the African Democratic Congress (ADC); Kemi Elebute Halle of the Action Democratic Party (ADP); Biodun Oyebanji of the All Progressives Congress (APC); Olabisi Kolawole of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP); former Governor Segun Oni, Social Democratic Party (SDP) and Ranti Ajayi from the Young Progressives Party (YPP).ElectionsNewsAddThis:Original Author:saharareporters, new yorkDisable advertisements:
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