BVAS AND ELECTION CREDIBILITY IN THE 2023 GUBERNATORIAL ELECTION IN PLATEAU STATE

Abstract

A credible election is devoid of any sort of manipulation, one that is free and fair, and also transparent. The outcome of such an election always represents the true mandate of the people and therefore produces a legitimate authority. This article focused on the impact of the use of BVAS for the 2023 election in the conduct of the gubernatorial election in Plateau state. In this study, we adopted the Structural functionalism theory. This study relied on an ex post facto research design. Both primary and secondary data were collected through the use of key informant interviews, newspapers, and journal articles. Data were analyzed with content analysis. After a thorough analysis that relied on the two hypotheses of this study. This study discovered that; the use of BVAS for accreditation during the gubernatorial election in Plateau in the just concluded 2023 election, may have helped to remove voter impersonation and multiple voting, but on the other hand. It led to disenfranchisement and third-party manipulation. This is because of the inability of the electoral officers to adequately operate the device, and the failure of the device to capture the face and fingerprint of most registered voters in most of the polling units. Secondly, this study discovered that there were cases of result manipulation, rigging and post-election litigation, as a result of the failure of INEC to upload the result of the election at the polling unit to the IReV. The failure to do so was based on poor network, and system hacking among other things. In light of the conclusions reached during this study, the following recommendations are made: INEC must ensure thorough education on the advantages of the electronic accreditation process to prevent a repeat of the difficulties encountered during the deployment of the technology.