Voting was disrupted at a major polling unit in Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital, on Saturday, following repeated malfunctions of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).
Naijaonpoint understands that the incident occurred at Polling Unit 018, located in the open space in front of the Federal Polytechnic, where many voters were left stranded in long queues.
The polling unit has 884 registered voters and reportedly opened on schedule, with accreditation and voting commencing at about 8:30 am.
The exercise initially started smoothly but was later hampered when the BVAS device began to develop technical hitches.
The malfunction slowed down the accreditation process and created a backlog of voters waiting to cast their ballots.
When reporters visited the polling unit around 11:45am, large queues had formed as electoral officials struggled to manage the accreditation process amid the recurring glitches.
Some voters expressed frustration over the development, saying the faulty BVAS device had prolonged the exercise and forced them to wait for hours under the sun.
Despite the delay, many voters remained at the polling unit, insisting on casting their ballots in the governorship election.
As of the time of filing this report, accreditation and voting were still ongoing at the polling unit, though at a slower pace due to the BVAS malfunction.
Electoral officials were said to be working to address the technical problems and ensure that voters were accredited to participate in the election.
