Electronic transmission of result in Clause 38 of INEC Regulation is in exercise of the discretion under Section 60(5) of the Electoral Act.
….opinions pursuing the stance that the only means of transmitting the election result is through the electronic means fail to lend credence to the holistic approach of interpreting the Act; as such opinion is derived from restrictively reading the Clause 38 of the regulation without recourse to clause 48 and 93 in the same regulation.
The INEC Regulation further asserts its discretion on the manner in which elections will be conducted, birthing Clause 38 in the Regulation, which introduced the electronic transmission of election results. The regulation holds the status of a subsidiary legislation, as it was born from the primary lawmaking responsibility of the legislature, which had delegated its power to the body.
Clause 48 of the INEC Regulation reveals the status of the electronically transmitted election results, where incorrectness is identified by the collation officer, with a similar purpose identified under Clause 51, which states that discrepancies in a result submitted by the presiding officer to the Ward Collation Officer will be resolved using the electronic result to identify the source of the discrepancy.
The exercise of the power conferred on the body to make rules guiding its actions birthed the 2022 Regulations, which amongst others provided for the electronic transmission of the results by the presiding officer, stated in Clause 38 of the INEC Regulations of 2022. The provision highlights the incorporation of technology for an expeditious transfer of results from diverse locations and also suppresses the occurrence of electoral malpractice.
The language of Clause 38 only shows that whilst the draftsman intended that technology be entrenched in the elections process, where such is not practicable, another mode of transfer has to be put to use. This is due to the statement “Electronically transmit or transfer…” as opposed to the statement “electronically transmit or electronically transfer…” The use of ‘or’ in that clause denotes the existence of an alternative.
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