There’ll be no double registration for 2019 elections – INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission has said that anyone who attempts to register twice in the ongoing continuous voter registration exercise will be caught.

According to the commission, the technology it is using for the exercise is capable of checking and flagging all attempts at double registration.

The Director of Information Technology Development, INEC, Chidi Nwafor, said this on Thursday in an exclusive interview with Channels Television.

He explained that attempts at double registration would be spotted an eliminated via a process called deduplication, which would be run at both state and national levels.

“What it does is that when you do two registrations, it matches them and strikes one of your registration off,” he said, adding that it did not matter whether an individual registered in two different states.

Nwafor also warned those who might be planning to register twice that attempting to do so is a criminal offence.

He said, “Whichever way you do it, before 2019 when we run the system you will be caught and you will not be allowed to vote. Also, people should know that it is a criminal offence and people have been in trouble because of that.”

Nwafor explained that the continuous voter registration exercise started by INEC on Thursday would not only allow those who have turned 18 since the last general elections to register, it would also give people who could not vote due to one issue or the other with their registration to resolve the problem.

He said, “This is what we call housekeeping, making sure that we start this process of doing the registration and solving the issues of the cards, making sure everybody has their cards before the 2019 elections.”

With new registrations ongoing, Nwafor said that about seven million voter cards have yet to be collected from the commission, while between 52 and 53 million people had collected cards and could vote in elections.