About 14,000 Permanent Voters Cards, PVCs have been declared missing by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC in Rivers state.

Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC in the state, Mrs Gesila Khan disclosed this yesterday in Port Harcourt, she said some of the missing cards were stolen at the local government collection centers where they were kept to be distributed.

The REC appealed to those with the cards to return them as the card will be of no benefit to them. According to her, the electoral body was going to use a new device called card readers to identify owners of PVC before they can be used to vote.

 “Am appealing to Rivers people because we have lost a lot of cards. We have lost more than 14,000 PVCs and it’s one of the highest figures in the federation”.

All the cards that are being snatched are useless and meaningless because we are going to use a new system called card readers. Your card readers are just like ATM cards. You take it there and they slot it into the card reader to confirm if it is yours before you are allowed to vote”.

 “Polling officer will on the presentation of the PVC by an electorate be slotted into the card reader to confirm if it belongs to you. The next stage is the confirmation of your finger prints by the card reader before you are allowed to vote.”

If you go to the polling booth with someone else’s voters’ card, you would not be able to vote because each card is unique and can only be authenticated by the real owner. The PVC’s are meaningless to those who have stolen them”.