A total of 8,888 votes were rejected in the just concluded Ekiti state governorship election. This was disclosed in the final election result released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The number of rejected votes accounts for 2.46% of the total 360,753 votes recorded in the election.
Last Saturday, the people of Ekiti state went to the polls to elect a new Governor who will manage the affairs of the state for the next 4 years. At the end of the exercise, Biodun Oyebanji of the All Progressive Congress (APC) was declared the winner by INEC, having polled the majority of votes cast and met other requirements as stipulated in the INEC’s Regulations and Guidelines for the Conduct of Elections.
Oyebanji polled 187,057 votes and defeated the other 15 candidates who contested for the highest political office in the state.
According to the election results, only 360,753, representing 36.5% of the total registered voters, came out to vote on the election day. Of these 360,753 votes, 8,888 votes were rejected by the electoral commission.
Rejected votes in an election refer to votes that cannot be recorded or counted as valid votes by the electoral body mainly because of improper or wrong marking by the voter.
A review of Ekiti state governorship election data shows that 37,834 votes have been rejected in the state’s last 3 governorship elections.
In the 2014 guber election, INEC rejected a total of 10,089 votes which was 2.8% of the total 360,455 votes cast in the election.
The number of rejected votes in the 2018 governor election jumped to 18,857, an 86.9% increase from the previous election.
In the just-concluded election, 8,888 votes were rejected. This represents 2.46% of the total vote cast in the election.
Compared to the 2018 election, the number of rejected votes this year dropped by 52.9%.
According to Idayat Hassan, the Director, Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), and Samson Itodo, the Executive Director of Yiaga Africa, high incidences of voided or invalid (rejected) votes can be attributed to inadequate voter education.
The reduction in the number of rejected votes in Ekiti may mean an increase in voter education among the electorates, but the volume of rejected votes are still high and means that efforts to educate voters on how to use the ballot properly must continue especially as the people of Osun state prepare for their governorship election on July 16 and the country as a whole in 2023.