Advancing Electronic Voting Systems In Nigeria’s Electoral Process: Legal Challenges And Future Directions

Abstract

This article aims to examine the legal and policy challenges associated with
adopting an electronic voting (e-voting) system in Nigeria’s electoral process.
Nigeria, Africa’s largest democracy, has for many years been held down by
issues of election fraud, thuggery, violence as seen in past manual elections in
the country. The article argues that, if properly implemented and financed,
e-election offers great promise and potential as the panacea for voter fraud in
Nigeria’s electoral system. First, it examines the theoretical, legal and
constitutional basis for e-voting. Second, drawing lessons from other
jurisdictions, it analyses practical challenges for the implementation and
adoption of an e-voting system in Nigeria. These challenges include the possible
compromise of e-voting devices, by viruses or other malicious software;
manipulation by people with privileged access to the system, either system
developers, system administrators or malicious hackers; denial-of-service
attacks (attacks that result in the e-voting facility being disabled or otherwise
unavailable for voters to use); lack of adequate supervision mechanisms; and
the difficulties of proving electronic attacks in courts of law among other
things. Many of these problems are beyond the contemplation of and, therefore,
are unaddressed by Nigeria’s Electoral Act, making the law currently incapable and unsuitable to effectively respond to these problems. The article calls for
a reform of the Nigerian Electoral Act to better address peculiar legal and
constitutional challenges associated with e-voting systems.