ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION OF ELECTION RESULTS AND DEMOCRATIC LEGITIMACY IN NIGERIA: LEGAL AND ETHICAL LESSONS FROM THE 2023 GENERAL ELECTIONS.

Abstract

The introduction of electronic transmission of election results under the Electoral Act 2022 represented a deliberate legislative effort to reconstruct electoral transparency and reinforce democratic legitimacy in Nigeria. Conceived as a technological safeguard against post-poll manipulation, the reform sought to strengthen procedural integrity by embedding digital verifiability within the collation process. The experience of the 2023 General Elections, however, exposed structural tensions between statutory aspiration and institutional execution. This article interrogates the legal architecture of section 60(3) of the Act, examines its judicial interpretation during post-election litigation, and evaluates the ethical implications of administrative discretion in technologically mediated elections. It argues that the statutory design, while reformist in orientation, retained interpretive elasticity by conditioning transmission on procedures prescribed by the Independent National Electoral Commission, thereby complicating enforcement and public expectation. The repeal and re-enactment of the Electoral Act in 2026, which expressly incorporates electronic transmission within the statutory text while authorising conditional manual fallback, constitutes the legislature’s response to these vulnerabilities. The paper concludes that the durability of this reconstructed framework will depend on the transparency and evidentiary discipline with which fallback mechanisms are invoked, and that the credibility of the 2027 general elections will provide the decisive test of its constitutional adequacy.

Keywords: Electoral Act 2022; Electoral Act (Repeal and Re-Enactment) 2026; Electronic Transmission of Results; Democratic Legitimacy; Dual Transmission Model; Judicial Interpretation