ELECTRONIC EVIDENCE AND ELECTRONIC VOTING UNDER THE ELECTORAL ACT 2022: ELECTROCUTION OR ELECTRIFICATION?

Abstract

Until year 2022 when former President Muhammadu Buhari signed the Electoral Act 2022 into law, Nigeria has not provided any legal framework for electronic voting and has not practiced electronic voting as an holistic electoral process. Electoral disputes are also resolved by the use of evidence tendered and admissible in court or tribunal. On 2 June 2023, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu signed into law the Evidence Act (Amendment) 2023 in order to widen the scope of electronic evidence in Nigeria. This paper seeks to examine electronic evidence and electronic voting under the Electoral Act 2022 and the scope of usage within the Evidence Act. The concept of electronic voting and its intersection with electronic evidence has taken the digital space in Nigeria. The paper probes further, the role of electronic evidence in proof of electronic voting in the Nigerian electoral justice. This is because electronic voting comes with its own vices that need to be examined alongside the need to put in place measures to guard against possible compromise of e-voting devices by viruses and other threats to the digital space. The paper further examined the difficulties of proving electronic attacks in courts of law among other things. The paper adopts the doctrinal methodology as it considers statutory provisions, case laws, and opinions of other legal writers among others. The paper calls for the implementation of the provisions of the law with regards to electronic voting and electronic evidence as times have changed and electronic voting has become a necessity under the Electoral Act among other statutes. The paper exposes the likely challenges with the implementation of the Electoral Act as far as electronic voting is concerned.