Fashola highlights benefits of electronic voting

Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State has drawn the attention of the Federal Government to the benefits of electronic voting over the manual system as the country’s 2015 general elections draw near.

Fashola pointed out that electronic voting is more accurate, transparent and speedy, as well as being more cost effective and better suited for countries with huge land mass and population, as well as varied terrain, such as Nigeria.

The governor was speaking at a media parley at the weekend in Lagos where representatives of Bharat Electronics Limited of India, makers of electronic voting machines, conducted a demonstration.

The governor said he had heard of the company during a recent visit to India in the course of which he visited that country’s electoral commission, and decided to invite them for a demonstration of their equipment in Nigeria.

Satish Kumar, deputy manager, Bharat Electronics, said the company’s machines had been used in three major election in India over the years and had saved that country $50 million per election, over the manual system. Kumar said the machines were also used in Namibia’s recent elections.

He said India has 815 million registered voters, 935,000 polling stations in 543 constituencies, covering a wide and diverse geographical area, and that with the machines, they were able to attain great accuracy, transparency and savings in time and finance in their elections.

He added that the machines cost under $1,000 per unit, they are portable, store three days worth of battery power, are tamper proof and take about 12 seconds per individual to vote. He further said that Bharat Electronics could produce 2,000 units of the machines per day.