Opposition lawmakers in the house of representatives have staged a walkout from plenary over the Electoral Act amendment bill.
The lawmakers exited the chamber after their attempt to make electronic transmission of election results mandatory without manual collation serving as a fallback where technology fails.
The fresh amendment to section 60(3) provides that: “The Presiding Officer shall electronically transmit the resalts from cach polling unit to REV portal and such tiaasmission shall be done after the prescribed Form ECSA has been signed and stamped by the Presiding officer and/or countersigned by the candidates or Polling agents where available at the Polling Unit. Provided that if the electronic transmission of the result fails as a result of communication failure and it becomes impossible to transmit the result contained in forn: EC&A signed and stamped by the Presiding Officer and countersigned by the candidates or polling agents where available at the polling unit, the form EC&A shall remain the primary source of collation and declaration of the result”.
However, opposition lawmakers insisted that the provision should end after the first paragraph — effectively removing the clause that allows manual collation in the event of electronic transmission failure.
