The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Edo State office, on Friday, said a total of 1,996,088 Permanent Voters Cards (PVC) had been collected by residents of the state ahead of the general election slated for February 25 and March 11, 2023.
Obo Efanga, Edo State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), disclosed this to journalists in Benin City that the figure represents 79.8 percent of 2.5 million total number of registered voters.
“The total number of registered voters going to this election is 2,501,081. However, the total number of PVCs collected is 1,996,088 million which means that 79.8 per cent of registered voters’ cards have been collected,” Efanga said.
Giving further breakdown, he said at the end of PVCs collection earlier in February, the total number of uncollected PVCs stand at 504,993 and the bulk of the figure are people who registered between 2010 and 2019.
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“The number of uncollected PVCs is 504, 993 but let me quickly add that the bulk of this are people who registered between 2010-2011 to vote in the 2011 elections up to those who registered to vote in the 2019 elections. As a matter of fact, more than 399,000 of the figure are from that era.
“So, for those who registered in this last registration exercise 2021-2022, quite a large number of them, I think about 75 percent of those cards have been collected,” he added.
Efanga, while giving update on the level of preparedness by the commission in the state, said the election would be conducted in the 4,519 polling units across the state, noting that 96 polling units will have more than one Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) in order to accommodate the large numbers of prospective voters.
He also said the commission has trained supervisory presiding officers who have been selected to participate in the election.
