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Brief Profiles of Countries, EMBs and Partner Organisations of A-WEB

(C) ELECTION CALENDAR date of their choice or his portrait. No ballot box or ballot
paper is required under this arrangement. The presiding
1. Last Elections Dates officer counts the voters on the queue. In the case of the
23 February 2019 open secret model, it is a bridge of the two systems and
the method is as described under polling/voting above.
2. Future Election Calendar
2023 Ballot Papers:
At present there are thirty political parties in Nigeria.
3. Are there any fixed election days/dates Each ballot paper carries the names and symbols of all
No
the registered political parties. The names of the parties
[1] Electoral College are arranged in alphabetical order (top to bottom) on the
A third model, which is not so popular, is the Electoral Col- ballot paper. This arrangement makes the ballot paper to
lege system. Under this arrangement, the leader is elect- be unnecessarily large, because of the number of political
ed through the combined process of open ballot and a parties involved.
series of electoral colleges. The electorate only elects one
percent (1%) of the voters in the smallest political unit.
Those elected now constitute the Electoral College for
the next polling unit, until the leader emerges at the ap-
propriate level. This process often starts from the ward,
through the District or Local Government Area up to the
highest level, depending on the type of election. Nigeria,
at one time experimented on this system, with the intro-
duction of the Option A4 Model. However, this option was
not thrown open to the entire electorate, but was restrict-
ed to the selection of candidates for political contests,
not for the election itself. The Electoral College system
involves indirect elections.

Voting Systems:
Three types of voting systems have so far been practised
in Nigeria. They are the secret ballot, the open ballot and
the open secret ballot. The secret ballot system involves
the placement of the ballot box in such a way that casting
of the vote is done in secret, i.e. out of the view of those
in the voting station. Polling booths are usually required
in this system. The open ballot system depicts a situation
where eligible voters physically queue behind the candi-

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