The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has advised residents of the seven states where the Continuous Voter Registration is ongoing and who are yet to collect their Permanent Voter Cards, to check the register first to ascertain whether or not their names are already on it.
The commission said the CVR was aimed at accommodating eligible persons presently not on the biometric register of voters.
The CVR will commence today (Wednesday) in Kano, Edo, Plateau, Ogun, Imo, Lagos and Adamawa States.
The Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Mr. Kayode Idowu, in a statement issued on Tuesday in Abuja, however, stated that “if they are on the register, they need not present themselves for the CVR – even if they have not obtained their PVCs”.
He said, “The way to check if they are on the register of voters is simply to send an SMS to dedicated lines. Alternatively, someone doing the checking could preface the short message. The interrogator will get an instant response giving his/her full profile on the register and the polling unit number if the person is actually on the register; or an advice to the contrary, if the person is not.
“If a person is on the register and has not been able to obtain his/her PVC, he/she should go to the relevant local government office of INEC, where distribution of the cards will continue daily till the end of January 2015”.
According to the statement, only those who the SMS service shows are not on the register, need to present themselves for CVR, in addition to persons who are registering for the first time.
