The Independent National Electoral Commission said on Tuesday that it would migrate some voters from congested polling units in Ekiti State to make voting seamless during the 2023 general elections.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner for the state, Prof. Ayobami Salami, said the move was “to make voting process in 2023 general elections devoid of rigours and stress for voters and as well enhance security”.
Salami, who spoke in Ado Ekiti, the state capital, during a stakeholders’ meeting, called on political parties and other stakeholders in the state to educate the electorate on the new development, which he said would enhance effective electoral system.
He said, “The commission is planning to migrate some voters who fall within the densely populated polling units with the aim of decongesting such polling units and give room for the sparsely populated ones that are within the same cluster or location to be populated.”
Under the arrangement, some
registration area centres, super registration area centers, and collation centres would be moved to different places for security reasons and provided adequate space for number of ad hoc staff during the elections.
The REC, who said the decision was necessary to reduce the long queues and time wasting and as well allow more voters to exercise their rights during elections, said, “All the communities and registration areas where these relocations were done have been properly communicated to the stakeholders”.
On the ongoing distribution of the permanent voters card across the 16 local government areas in the state, the REC disclosed that as of December 9, 2022, a total of 783,796 PVCs had been collected, with 205,127 remaining uncollected of the 988,923 registered voters in the state.
Salami, who lauded security agencies in the state for their vigilance at INEC facilities, however, charged community leaders and Ekiti people to see the security of INEC facilities in their domains as a collective effort and promptly report any suspicious movement or activities around any of the facilities in their localities.
The chairman of the Inter-Party Advisory Council in Ekiti State, Owoola Daramola, lauded the commission for the regular interface with the political parties, as he called on INEC to ensure the success of the migration of the voters for the state to witness credible 2023 general election.
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