INEC Discovers Officers Behind Fake AI Voter Photos, Duplicate Entries
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says some of its registration officers are responsible for the questionable entries, including suspected AI-generated photographs, discovered in its preliminary voter register.
INEC’s Director of Information and Communication Technology, Lawrence Bayode, made the revelation on Friday during an appearance on Arise Television, following widespread reactions to the commission’s recently unveiled voter register.
The development comes after Nigerians spotted several alleged discrepancies in the register, including duplicate entries, photographs suspected to be AI-generated and records bearing the names of deceased individuals.
One of the controversial cases involved entries from a polling unit in Etsako West LGA of Edo State, where photographs suspected to have been generated with artificial intelligence were circulated on social media.
Addressing the controversy, Bayode said some registration officers had allegedly manipulated the system because they had access to INEC’s registration portal.
He noted that the officers were provided with login credentials to carry out voter registration but that some allegedly abused the privilege to introduce irregular records.
Bayode said the commission had identified some of the officers’ activities and established how the questionable entries found their way into the register through its Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS).
He said, however, that the commission was still unable to establish why the officers engaged in such activities.
The INEC director also maintained that efforts to sanitise the voter register had been ongoing before its preliminary publication.
He explained that the commission was working within a statutory 90-day timeframe, which had placed pressure on it to complete the registration and verification exercise.
