Voting ground to a halt at Polling Unit 018 in Ado-Ekiti on Saturday. Technical failures with the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) left hundreds of voters stuck in endless queues.
The polling unit sits in an open space before the Federal Polytechnic gates. It had 884 registered voters on its roll.
Officials opened the unit on time that morning. Accreditation and voting kicked off around 8:30 a.m. without incident.
Then the BVAS device started failing repeatedly. Each glitch slowed the accreditation process to a crawl.
By 11:45 a.m., when our reporters arrived, massive crowds had formed. Electoral officials struggled to keep pace with the technical breakdowns.
Voters grew angry as hours passed under the blazing sun. Many complained the faulty machine was ruining their Saturday and stealing their time.
"We came early to vote," one frustrated voter told us. "Now we're standing here like this because of one machine."
Yet most people didn't leave the polling unit. They remained determined to cast their ballots in the governorship election.
Election officials worked frantically to fix the BVAS problems. Progress remained slow and painful throughout the morning.
By the time this report was filed, voting continued at a snail's pace. The malfunction had clearly undermined the voting exercise's smooth operation.
