Group to INEC: Extend PVC collection to one week before elections

A human rights organisation, under the aegis of the Centre for Transparency Advocacy, on Monday, asked the Independent National Electoral Commission to extend the distribution of Permanent Voters Cards to one week before the general elections.

The PUNCH reported that INEC ended PVC collection on February 5, ahead of the February 25 presidential and National Assembly election as well as the March 11 governorship poll.

But the Executive Director of CTA, Faith Nwadishi, at a press conference on the mock accreditation exercise, called for the reopening and extension of the PVC collection to at least a week before the first round of elections.

Nwadishi also said total vote cast should be calculated based on the number of PVCs collected as against the practice where it is based on the total number of registered voters.

She said, “During the other off-season election, INEC allowed citizens to collect their PVCs at least 48 hours to the election. So there is no way we can recommend that people can collect their PVCs a day. If they were able to do 48 hours for one state, they should actually be able to do like a week before that (general election).

“There are some logistics reasons around that. INEC needs to release the total number of persons who have collected their PVCs and in checking the total number of vote cast, if you noticed in Ekiti and Osun, INEC will now give you the percentage of vote cast based on the total number of PVCs collected, no longer the number of registered voters.

“We have always had it wrong by calculating the percentage of vote cast on the total number of registered voters when we know that close to 10 per cent, 20 per cent, 30 per cent of persons may not have collected their voter’s card and the only point you can come out for election is to have your PVC. It’s 11 days to election, INEC will extend that for a week before election to enable us have the data for the forthcoming election. Punch