INEC Schedules Nationwide Mock Presidential Poll for November 28 Ahead of 2027 General Elections
ABUJA / LONDON — The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has fixed Saturday, November 28, 2026, for a nationwide mock accreditation and voting exercise to stress-test its upgraded Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and electronic result transmission architecture ahead of the 2027 general elections.
INEC Chairman, Professor Joash Amupitan (SAN), announced the simulation on Thursday, November 12, during a policy dialogue at Chatham House in London organized in partnership with the Kimpact Development Initiative under the theme, “Nigeria’s 2027 Elections: Democratic Trajectory and Regional Stability Beyond the Ballot”.
According to a statement issued in Abuja by the Chief Press Secretary and Media Adviser to the INEC Chairman, Adedayo Oketola, the November 28 exercise will take place across all 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The simulation is designed to replicate presidential election conditions, allowing the commission to evaluate field logistics, voter accreditation efficiency, and real-time electronic transmission to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) prior to the January 16, 2027, Presidential and National Assembly polls.
“On the 28th of this month, we will conduct a mock accreditation and voting exercise across all states of the federation to simulate the presidential election and verify that we have gotten both accreditation and electronic result transmission right,” Professor Amupitan stated.
To prevent the technical disruptions experienced during the 2023 electoral cycle, the INEC chairman disclosed that the commission has introduced new automated validation safeguards on the IReV platform. Under the updated protocol, polling unit result sheets containing mathematical discrepancies or figures indicating over-voting will be automatically blocked from uploading to the public portal.
“We have now devised a technical safeguard: if a result is not accurate at the polling unit, it will not go to IReV at all,” Amupitan explained. “The moment a result appears on IReV, citizens can trust what they see.”
In addition to software upgrades, INEC has restructured polling unit device allocation by reducing the maximum number of registered voters assigned to a single BVAS machine from 1,250 to 850, ensuring that high-density polling units receive supplementary devices to prevent accreditation bottlenecks. The commission also confirmed that the distribution of non-sensitive electoral materials to state offices has commenced.
Addressing concerns over the integrity of the national voter register—including allegations of an 85 percent surge in registered voters in a ward in Ebonyi State—Amupitan maintained that the commission had investigated and resolved the complaint in strict compliance with statutory procedures under the Electoral Act. He urged citizens, particularly young voters, to actively participate in the electoral process while verifying information before sharing it online to counter election-related misinformation.
Under INEC’s approved electoral timetable, the Presidential and National Assembly elections will hold on January 16, 2027, followed by the Governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections on February 6, 2027.
