The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announced that Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) will not be issued to third parties. This policy was outlined by INEC National Commissioner and Chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee, Sam Olumekun, in a statement released on Tuesday.
Olumekun revealed that the distribution of PVCs to new applicants across Edo State will commence today. The ward-level distribution has already concluded, with 125,928 PVCs collected in just five days. This figure represents 68.3 percent of the 184,438 new cards issued during the recent Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise, marking the highest collection rate achieved by INEC since the introduction of CVR ahead of the 2015 off-cycle governorship elections.
The success of the ward-level collection, which took place across all 192 wards in Edo State from August 22 to 26, is attributed to INEC’s strategic packaging of PVCs by polling units, wards, and local government areas, coupled with direct voter communication about card availability.
The PVC collection will now move to the 18 Local Government Area (LGA) offices in Edo State, where voters can retrieve their cards from August 28 to September 8, 2024. INEC has emphasized that cards must be collected in person, as proxy collection is not permitted. Detailed information on the locations of LGA offices has been made available on INEC’s website, encouraging voters who have not yet collected their PVCs to do so promptly.
Olumekun urged remaining voters to visit their LGA offices to pick up their PVCs and reiterated that the commission’s policy remains firm on in-person collection to ensure security and accuracy.