Electronic Transmission No Silver Bullet for Electoral Fraud – CCS, NDCfC Warn
As Nigeria debates amendments to the Electoral Act 2022 ahead of the 2027 general elections, two prominent civil society organizations have cautioned that relying solely on electronic transmission of election results will not eradicate electoral fraud. The Centre for Contemporary Studies (CCS) and the Nigeria Diaspora Coalition for Change (NDCfC) issued a joint statement emphasizing that while electronic transmission enhances verifiability, it falls short without addressing deeper vulnerabilities in data security and electoral architecture. “The issue is not merely whether data can move electronically, but whether it can move with forensic integrity,” the groups stated. They pointed out that data remains vulnerable across its lifecycle—Data At Rest, Data In Use, and Data In Motion. Without safeguards for all three stages, electronic transmission could simply “relocate distrust rather than eliminating it.” The warning comes amid controversy over proposals in the National Assembly,...