A total of 269,992 new voters have been registered by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Edo and Ondo states at the end of the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) which ended on Sunday, 9 June 2024.
INEC National Commissioner and Chairman of its Information and Voter Education Committee, Sam Olumekun disclosed this in a statement in Abuja on Tuesday.
Olumekun said out of the figure, 129,246 representing 47.87% were male, 140,756 or 52.13% were female; he added that the youths formed the majority registered voters with 182,541 representing 67.61% of persons between ages 18-34 years; 95,463 or 35.36% were students while 1,588 representing 0.59% were Persons with Disability (PWDs).
He also said there were 24,454 requests for replacement of Permanent Voter’s Cards (PVCs), 74,493 applications for voter transfer and 8,314 for information updates.
The INEC National Commissioner said, the next step as provided by Section 19 of the Electoral Act 2022 is the display of the register for claims and objections by citizens for a period of seven days (one week) beginning from Wednesday 12 June 2024.
He said the display will take place in all the 395 Wards across the two states and the register will also be available on the commission’s website: https://cvr.inecnigeria.org/register.
Olumekun said, “The purpose of the display is for the public to identify any ineligible persons on the register, draw the Commission’s attention to it and file an objection to the appearance of the name on the register by completing Forms EC2 and EC3 available from our officials in all the centres.
“The Forms can also be downloaded from our website – https://inecnigeria.org/?page_id=13655 – and handed over to our officials as provided in Section 9(4) of the Electoral Act 2022.
“Furthermore, fresh registrants and applicants for transfer, correction of personal details and replacement of lost or damaged PVCs can draw the Commission’s attention to errors or wrong entries for further action.
“At the end of the period for claims and objections, the Commission will further clean up the register using the Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) before the list of new voters is added to the existing register for the two States.
“Once again, the Commission wishes to emphasise that these are preliminary figures. The final figures will be published on State by State basis after the period for claims/objections and ABIS. The date for the commencement of collection of new PVCs will be announced thereafter.
“The Commission appeals to the public to seize the opportunity of the display of the register to help us clean it up as provided by law”.
