The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has unveiled a new technology designed to block fake and manipulated election results from infiltrating its Result Viewing Portal (IReV), ahead of the 2027 general elections.
The Commission said the innovation will strengthen the credibility of the electoral process by ensuring that only authentic results uploaded directly from polling units are displayed on the portal, shutting out doctored or forged result sheets.
The move is the latest attempt by INEC to repair public confidence damaged by disputes over the 2023 presidential polls.
INEC Chairman Professor Joash Amupitan said the commission’s review of the 2023 election found that many of the most serious result-management failures occurred not at polling units, but at collation centers, where local results are aggregated and declared.
“The core problem of election result management and declaration in Nigeria is not even at the polling unit –it is at the collation centres,” he said.
Under the new system, INEC said it will screen results before they are uploaded to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV).
acchecks—including those showing more votes than accredited voters—will be blocked from publication.
“If a result is not accurate at the polling unit, it will not go to IReV at all,” Amupitan said on Thursday at Chatham House in London, during a dialogue organized with the Kimpact Development Initiative.
“The moment a result appears on IReV, citizens can trust what they see”, he also said.
The commission said the safeguards are intended to eliminate discrepancies between polling-unit records and collation documents, reducing the opportunity for disputed or altered figures to shape official declarations.
INEC plans a nationwide mock accreditation and voting exercise on November 28 to test both voter verification and electronic result transmission.
The drill will simulate the presidential election across all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The Chairman said the Commission considered replacing its electoral technology altogether but chose instead to upgrade existing systems because of the limited time before the elections.
The announcement comes as INEC confronts lingering skepticism from the 2023 presidential election, when technical failures and disputes over result transparency fueled allegations of manipulation.
Amupitan acknowledged that the episode left “a significant trust deficit” that the commission has not fully recovered from.
To improve operations, INEC said it is building climate-controlled storage facilities for its Bimodal Voter Accreditation System devices, which malfunctioned in some areas during the 2023 elections amid extreme heat and poor storage conditions.
It has also procured additional devices and reduced the maximum number of registered voters assigned to each machine from 1,250 to 850.
Amupitan said INEC has received a substantial portion of its approved election budget but is still awaiting the balance, including funds for recruiting and paying ad hoc electoral personnel.
He said the commission had received assurances that the remaining money would be released before the end of November.
The Chairman also rejected suggestions that his prior work as a lawyer in political cases compromises his neutrality, saying his loyalty is solely to Nigeria’s Constitution and Electoral Act.
He said allegations linking his phone number to a controversial X account had been referred for forensic examination and investigation by the Department of State Services (DSS) and the Inspector-General of Police (IGP).
