INEC Extends Voting In 300 Polling Units Out 150,000

Voting in ongoing general election has been extended to Sunday
in 300 out of 150,000 polling stations, the electoral commission
said, after technical glitches marred polling nationwide.
“Just about 300 polling units out of about 150,000,” spokesman
for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC),
Kayode Idowu, told reporters, when asked about the number of
polling station affected by the extension.
Hand-held card readers which scan voter’s biometric data
malfunctioned or failed at various polling stations across Africa’s
most populous country.
Kayode said there were 109 polling stations where “cards were
not read” at all, another 100 stations where there were “issues”
with biometric data, while card readers in other areas had battery
problems.
The commission had earlier said that given the widespread
malfunctioning of card readers, electoral officers had been
empowered to manually check voter cards against a hard copy of
the electoral roll.
During the election campaign, President Goodluck Jonathan’s
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) repeatedly criticised the
technology, which is designed to “read” fingerprints and other
personal data in 10 seconds.
The main opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) backed the
use of the devices as a way of combating widespread vote-
rigging in previous elections.