The European Union (EU) Election Observers: report on the 2023 Nigeria election says, ‘Elections was held on scheduled, but lack of transparency and operational failures reduced trust in the process and challenged the right to vote’.
Elections from inception have been marred with a lot of irregularities ranging from poor processing or preparation that is always wearing a veil in secrecy; electoral umpires are biased and show sympathy towards their religious lineage or incumbent government says Adamo (1979) in his work.
One of the five thematic areas recommended by Best Practices for any country that wants to geo-enabled their election processes was to initially geo-code all the voter’s registers for proper identification, effective planning for logistics and ballot area location.
The proceeds and the paraneferia of office enjoyed by the Executives and the Legislatures in Nigeria can never be compared with other clients practicing constitutional democracy for centuries. That is why, the political pundits get involved in all sorts of election maleficent to perpetrate themselves in office by introducing twisted or skewed policies to subvert the will of the electorates.
Author(s) Details:
Isa Agaie Dawodu
Department of Geo-informatics and Surveying, Faculty of Environmental Studies, University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus (UNN), Nigeria.
Francis Ifeanyi Okeke
Department of Geo-informatics and Surveying, Faculty of Environmental Studies, University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus (UNN), Nigeria.
Mubarak Umar Faruk
Department of Geo-informatics and Surveying, Faculty of Environmental Studies, University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus (UNN), Nigeria.
Yusuf Ibrahin Kuriwa
Department of Geo-informatics and Surveying, Faculty of Environmental Studies, University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus (UNN), Nigeria.
Recent Global Research Developments in Optimizing Electoral Processes: Geo-Coding Voter Residential Addresses
“Geo-coding of Voter’s Residential Address: A Panacea to Election Malpractice in Jos South LGA of Plateau State, Nigeria” [1]
Geo-Coding and GIS:
- Purpose: Geo-coding involves assigning geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude) to voters’ residential addresses.
- GIS Integration: By incorporating geo-coding into Geographic Information Systems (GIS), election management can transition from unverifiable methods to data-driven, spatially informed processes.
- Advantages: GIS visualization and analytical capabilities replace non-spatial address systems, allowing efficient management of election districts and voter locations.
Implementation and Benefits:
- Technical Efforts: Implementing geo-coding requires investment, technology, and continuous staff capacity building by election management bodies (e.g., INEC in Nigeria).
- Process: The study exported a file geodatabase of point attribute data (including voter details) to ArcMap in ArcGIS. Parameters were set for urban and rural areas, resulting in voter location information.
- Outcomes: Geo-coding reduces multiple voting, minimizes apathy, and aids INEC in effective election planning.
References
- Isa Agaie Dawodu, Francis Ifeanyi Okeke, Mubarak Umar Faruk, & Yusuf Ibrahin Kuriwa. (2023). Geo-coding of Voter’s Residential Address: A Panacea to Election Malpractice in Jos South LGA of Plateau State, Nigeria. Journal of Psychology and Political Science(JPPS) ISSN 2799-1024, 3(06), 56–62. https://doi.org/10.55529/jpps.36.56.62
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