The Senatorial candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for Bayelsa West, Sen Seriake Dickson says the Bi-Modal Voter Authentication System (BVAS) has significantly improved the electoral system.
Dickson, immediate past governor of Bayelsa, who spoke shortly after voting at his Toru Orua country home in Sagbama Local Government Area of Bayelsa noted that the impact of technology has checked and reduced electoral malpractices.
Dickson, who is seeking to retain the Bayelsa West Senate seat noted that for the first time , he was accredited smoothly in less than two minutes.
“In 2015, the card reader did not recognise my fingerprint, I voted with incident form, same for 2019,but in this election BVAS worked for me, it is an improvement, it may not be perfect, we can keep improving.
“From the way it worked here, the process was seamless and I hope it works the same way across board and it has vindicated my efforts for the adoption of technology in the electoral system,” Dickson said.
He said that ad a member of Senate Committee on INEC, he fought for the adoption of BVAS and the electronic transmission of results in the amended Electoral Act.
He noted that if the process was sanitised, the results would be acceptable to all parties and the judiciary would play less roles in determining who wins elections.
“The process is very important, as well as the outcome of the process and with BVAS, it is now difficult for unpopular candidates to win elections, BVAS has checked violence that most politicians relied on.
“The elections across my area and Bayelsa from field reports was violence free and I feel the introduction of BVAS was instrumental to this,” Dickson said