Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has called on Kogi State Independent Electoral Commission to jettison the plan to allow accreditation and voting to go simultaneously on December 12 local government election day.
Speaking with newsmen in Lokoja on Friday, the State Deputy Publicity Secretary of PDP, Muhammed Kabir said the insistence of KOSIEC to allow simultaneous accreditation and voting is clearly against electoral guidelines.
Kabir argued that if both processes are allowed to run pari passu, party agents will not be able to account for the number of persons accredited and how many people voted.
He insisted that the planned modality will encourage dubious voters to cast illegal votes in different polling units.
“It is clearly stated in section 15(h) of the electoral act that voters will queue and security agents will stand behind the last person by 3pm. Also, section 15(I) stated that the accredited voters will be issued voter’s card on the queue to proceed and vote.
“In this case, it means that accreditation has to be conducted first and announced so that the parties will have the record of those accredited in a unit before commencement of voting.
“If this is adhered to and voting start at the same time in all the polling units, it will prevent people moving from one unit to the other and it will checkmate multiple voting, over voting and rigging generally.
“We call on KOSIEC to jettison the plan to allow accreditation and voting run simultaneously. When accreditation is done differently, it will enable us to know the number of people that were accredited and the agents can sign it off and agree on it, this will protect the sanctity of the process,” he said.
The PDP spokesman called on KOSIEC to ensure early arrival of election officers and materials in all polling units to avoid unnecessary tension.
