The Electoral Transparency, Digital Verification and Evidentiary Accountability Bill

Electoral Transparency and Digital Integrity Bill

I propose a legislative framework to strengthen electoral transparency, evidence management and the use of technology in Nigeria’s elections.

The Bill would create a limited statutory evidentiary duty on INEC concerning electoral records within its exclusive custody. Where an election petition raises an issue concerning BVAS records, polling-unit result sheets, accreditation data, electronic transmission records or other materials generated and maintained by INEC, the Commission should be required to produce the relevant records. Failure to produce such records without reasonable justification should permit an appropriate adverse inference, without imposing a blanket reversal of the burden of proof on INEC.

The Bill would also make the timely upload of polling-unit results through BVAS to the IReV portal a clear statutory obligation, with defined timelines and publicly accessible records.

In addition, it would establish an AI-assisted electoral audit framework to detect inconsistencies between accreditation data, BVAS entries, result sheets and subsequent collation figures. AI would serve as an auditing and anomaly-detection tool, not as a decision-maker in determining electoral outcomes.

Finally, every electronic electoral record should have a secure, tamper-evident audit trail, while election tribunals should have expedited access to relevant digital records during election petitions.

The objective is simple: the citizen should be able to see the result, the electoral body should be able to prove the integrity of the process, and the courts should have direct access to the evidence necessary to determine electoral disputes.