1m Bayelsans to cast their vote on Saturday — INEC

A total of 1, 017, 613 residents of Bayelsa State, who have collected their Permanent Voter Cards, PVCs, would on Saturday go to the ballot to choose the governor to administer the state in the next four years.

National Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, disclosed this in Yenagoa, yesterday, at a stakeholders meeting ahead of Saturday’s election.

He said: “You will recall that the commission published the national register of voters on January 11, 2023, which was used for the conduct of the 2023 general election. The same register of voters will be used for the 2023 governorship election in Bayelsa State. The total number of registered voters in Bayelsa State for the covernorship election is 1,056,862, comprising 566,095 males and 490,767 females.

“The commission on September 10, 2023, in preparation for the election, lifted the suspension of Permanent Voters Cards, PVCs, collection in the three states of Imo, Bayelsa and Kogi, where election will hold this Saturday. All uncollected PVCs were, thereafter, made available for collection between September 11 and October 10, 2023.

“The commission has now published on our website, comprehensive information of collected and uncollected PVCs in the state on polling unit basis. The information also gives the distribution of the polling units by delimitation, the number of registered voters and the number of collected and uncollected PVCs.

“The breakdown indicates that out of 1,056,862 registered voters in Bayelsa State, 1,017,613 have collected their PVCs with 39,249 PVCs remaining uncollected in the state.

“The commission will deploy the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, in all the 2,244 polling units in Bayelsa State for the election.

“We have trained technical support staff that will be deployed to all the registration areas and local government areas to provide technical support for the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS.

“Extensive hands-on-practicals on the use of BVAS, and uploading of the result to IREV (INEC Result Viewing Portal) by the appropriate personnel have also been made.

“On October 14, 2023, the commission even conducted a mock accreditation exercise involving voters in designated polling units in all LGAs in Bayelsa State. This exercise enabled the commission to test the efficacy of the BVAS for both biometric authentication of voters and the upload of result to the INEC IReV.

“We have so far received no adverse report from those who observed the exercise and viewed the results on the IReV portal. The commission looks forward to improved performance of the BVAS in voter accreditation and result upload in this governorship election and beyond.

“The commission has also accredited polling agents nominated by political parties for the polling units, ward collation centres, local government area collation centres and to the state collation centre, where the final declaration of result will be made.

“On election day, the national headquarters of INEC in Abuja will monitor the election throughout the state. Our Zoom Situation Room will be accordingly activated. Members of the Inter Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security, ICCES, will also activate their situation room on Bayelsa State to monitor the security situation across the state.

“For a more effective supervision of the process, we are deploying one National Commissioner, eight Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECs, and many senior officials to support our state office here in Bayelsa to deliver credible elections.”