ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF SMART CARD READER IN CONDUCTING CREDIBLE ELECTION IN NIGER STATE: A STUDY OF 2019 GENERAL ELECTION IN BIDA LOCAL GOVERNMENT.

Abstract

The study assessed the impact of Smart Card Reader in conducting credible election in Niger State with a particular reference to 2019 general election in Bida Local Government. Over the years, Nigeria is facing with the problem of election rigging and manipulation from the politicians which resulted to the serious crisis during the post election period in spite of the introduction of smart card reader in 2015 general election in the country. The study adopted system theory as a framework of this study. It adopted survey research design with the population of 157,379 of registered voter's INEC in 2019 general election. To determine the sample size, Krejcie and Morgan 1970 were adopted where researcher arrived at 382. The structure questionnaire was adopted and chi-squire was employed to test hypotheses. The finding reveals that the adopted of smart card reader significantly enhance democratic consolidation in Nigeria. It was recommended that government should continue to enlighten and awareness campaign to the electorate and Ad-hoc staff on the use of smart card reader in the Nigeria electoral process