Engineers Back Real-time Electronic Transmission Of Election Results

The Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) has declared support for real-time electronic transmission of election results.

The Senate had within the week rejected the proposal to make real-time electronic transmission of election results from polling units to INEC’s IReV portal mandatory.

The lawmakers highlighted poor network coverage, cyber security risk, infrastructure deficiency and risk of legal disputes as reasons for their rejection.

However, the NSE in a statement yesterday signed by its president, Engr. Ali Alimasuya Rabiu, said, “Let it be on record that the reasons mentioned above do not have the endorsement of any technically proficient professional organisation such as the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE).”

He explained that contrary to the Senate’s position, electronic transmission of election results offers several technical advantages that could enhance the integrity, efficiency and credibility of Nigeria’s electoral process.

He identified the benefits as reduced risk of manipulation, faster collation and announcement, improved accuracy and auditability, cost savings and scalability.

He explained that manual transfer relies on physical transport of result sheets, which is prone to tampering, loss or alteration during transit however , Electronic systems use secure protocols like end-to-end encryption and digital signatures to ensure data integrity from polling units to central servers, minimising human intervention.

In the same vein, he said real-time digital uploads enable automated aggregation, cutting result declaration time from days to hours.

The NSE president said this leverages network technologies (e.g., cellular 4G/5G or satellite links in remote areas) to bypass logistical delays in our nation’s vast terrain.

Similarly, digital records eliminate transcription errors common in manual processes.

According to Engr. Ali,  block chain or time-stamped ledgers provide immutable audit trails, allowing independent verification by stakeholders via Application Programming Interface (API) or dashboards.

He stated further that initial setup costs are offset reducing printing, transportation and personnel needs for manual handling.

He added that  scalable cloud-based systems can handle the over 176,000 polling units efficiently, with redundancy measures like offline caching for areas with poor connectivity.

“At the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), we believe that adopting real-time transmission of election results, as seen in successful implementations in countries like Estonia and India, could have addressed Nigeria’s history of electoral disputes while complying with INEC’s existing tech infrastructure. Therefore, we declare our full support for real-time electronic transmission of election results” he said.