The Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC), has said it will not hesitate to prosecute anyone who tries to hack its website in the course of the online Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Cross River, Dr. Emmanuel Hart, stated this yesterday, in Calabar, while speaking to newsmen after day one of the CVR exercise, which started on Monday nationwide.
He said that the Commission would apply all relevant aspects of the Law to ensure the prosecution of any registered offender.
“INEC will not hesitate to prosecute anyone who tries to hack its website during this Online registration exercise.
“We have the Cyber-crime Law 2015 and the Electoral Act 2010 section 117 (as amended). This will further apply to other registration offences including double registration, underage registration and other related offences”, he said.
According to him, while the INEC online pre-registration kicked-off Monday, the In-Person (physical) registration will start on July 19 nationwide, adding that this would be “based on evaluation of security situation for the personnel and equipment to be deployed for the exercise”.
The REC added that the online-registration portal was designed to serve various needs of eligible voters “ranging from new registration to request for Intra/Interstate transfers.
“Other needs the portal will serve include replacement of lost, damaged and defaced Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) as provided by law.
“However, after undertaking the online registration, the applicant still has to come to INEC registration centres; that is States and Local Government Offices, for facial and biometric capture”, he further stated.
