01Parallel vote tabulation · Nigeria
From the booth
to the broadcast.
One trained agent in every polling unit. A photo of the result sheet behind every number. And the share of booths counted shown beside every total, so you always know how much of the country you are actually looking at.
- Polling units
- 176,623
- Wards
- 8,809
- LGAs
- 774
- States + FCT
- 37
Poll360 is not an electoral commission and publishes no official result. The figures are what our agents reported from the booths they were standing in.
25/07/04/019
Model Primary School II · Ward 04
Submitted
Position matched to the appointed unit
41m from the unit on file · accuracy ±8m · 18:42:07
- Registered
- 1,204
- Accredited
- 542
- Rejected
- 9
- APC214
- PDP168
- LP96
- NNPP31
509 cast + 9 rejected ≤ 542 accredited
Result sheet attached
sha256 · 9f2c41e8… · 1600px · 214KB
02The live board
February 2023, arriving again
Nigeria's last presidential election, replayed on the board a situation room would have watched it on. States start grey because nobody has reported from them yet, the share counted climbs, and leads change hands before they settle. Every figure is the real declared result, drag the slider to go back to any moment of the night.
Collating
Presidential · 25 February 2023
21:39
ReplayThese are the real declared results of the 2023 presidential election. Only the order they arrive in is made up, nobody publishes a booth-by-booth arrival log, so every figure, and the finished map, is exactly what happened.
- APCAll Progressives Congress
- PDPPeoples Democratic Party
- LPLabour Party
- NNPPNew Nigeria Peoples Party
- OTHOther parties
- No returns yet
Booths reporting
27.8%
States complete
0/37
- Booths in
- 49,172 of 176,623
- Valid votes ÷ register so far
- 25.5%
Votes counted
6,375,222
APCAll Progressives Congress
33.4%
2,132,213
PDPPeoples Democratic Party
31.5%
2,010,752
LPLabour Party
28.4%
1,813,230
NNPPNew Nigeria Peoples Party
3.9%
246,046
OTHOther parties
2.7%
172,981
Lead over second place 121,461
Latest returns
- 37/05/09/017Zamfara+540PDP
- 18/07/10/003Jigawa+662APC
- 23/26/09/024Kogi+607APC
- 01/11/04/032Abia+606LP
- 35/10/08/025Taraba+521PDP
- 15/09/07/026Federal Capital Territory+315LP
- 02/20/10/040Adamawa+586PDP
| State | Leading | Share | Counted | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anambra | LP | 93.9% | 63% | Decided |
| Ogun | APC | 55.2% | 56.1% | Leaning |
| Akwa Ibom | PDP | 43.3% | 52.8% | Leaning |
| Ekiti | APC | 58.7% | 49.1% | Leaning |
| Adamawa | PDP | 61.5% | 46.2% | Leaning |
| Osun | APC | 48.9% | 45.8% | Too close |
| Zamfara | APC | 50.1% | 44.4% | Too close |
| Ebonyi | LP | 81% | 41.4% | Leaning |
| Enugu | LP | 96% | 41.2% | Leaning |
| Benue | APC | 42.3% | 39% | Leaning |
| Jigawa | APC | 45.1% | 37.8% | Too close |
| Cross River | LP | 47.7% | 37.3% | Leaning |
| Ondo | APC | 46.4% | 36.3% | Leaning |
| Kogi | APC | 45.3% | 35.4% | Leaning |
| Gombe | PDP | 50.3% | 33.4% | Leaning |
| Sokoto | PDP | 54.6% | 32% | Leaning |
| Imo | LP | 74.6% | 31.6% | Leaning |
| Lagos | LP | 57.1% | 27.1% | Leaning |
| Kebbi | PDP | 61.8% | 27% | Leaning |
| Rivers | APC | 43.9% | 26.4% | Leaning |
| Delta | LP | 54.9% | 25.6% | Leaning |
| Bauchi | PDP | 55.4% | 24.7% | Too early |
| Edo | LP | 51.3% | 23.6% | Too early |
| Plateau | LP | 44.9% | 22.2% | Too early |
| Nasarawa | PDP | 38% | 22% | Too early |
| Borno | PDP | 55.5% | 20.7% | Too early |
| Federal Capital Territory | LP | 64.1% | 19.7% | Too early |
| Kwara | APC | 57.5% | 19.4% | Too early |
| Bayelsa | PDP | 36% | 19.1% | Too early |
| Katsina | APC | 48.6% | 18.8% | Too early |
| Yobe | PDP | 60.6% | 16.1% | Too early |
| Abia | LP | 86.8% | 15.4% | Too early |
| Kano | NNPP | 68.2% | 13.2% | Too early |
| Taraba | PDP | 35.4% | 12.9% | Too early |
| Kaduna | LP | 33.8% | 10.5% | Too early |
| Niger | APC | 56.8% | 9% | Too early |
| Oyo | APC | 52.3% | 5% | Too early |
37 of 37 states reporting
Reading this board
- Grey does not mean zero. A state nobody has reported from is drawn grey and says “no returns yet” in the table.
- Every figure says how much is counted. A share is always of the booths counted so far, never of the whole country.
- Nothing is called early. Under a quarter counted, a state reads “too early” however big the lead looks.
- Colour is never the only clue. Two of these party colours look identical to one man in twelve, so every state carries its party’s initials, one is drawn with stripes, and this table has no colour at all.
INEC declared results, 2023 presidential election, compiled by Wikipedia. Adding up the state rows gives 24,026,730 valid votes against INEC’s declared 24,025,940, a 0.003% difference in the published source, which we have left as we found it rather than tidied away. Booth counts per state are worked out from the register. Boundaries: geoBoundaries gbOpen (CC BY 4.0), geoboundaries.org, CC BY 4.0.
03What we will not get wrong
Four rules, and they are not settings
Every results system has to make these four choices. Most make them quietly, on the night, under pressure to show a cleaner map. We make them in public, and we build them in so nobody can switch them off at 11pm.
- 01
Grey means nobody has reported yet
If no result has come in from a booth, we draw it grey and say so. We never colour it in for a party, and never show it as a low score. At 9pm, “nobody is winning here” and “nobody has told us yet” are two completely different things.
- 02
Every number says how much is counted
A party ahead on 4% of booths is not ahead. Every figure we publish sits next to the share of booths it came from, on screen, on air, and in anything you download.
- 03
There is a photo behind every result
A result is filed with a photo of the result sheet, by a named agent, from a phone whose location was recorded at that moment. A number with nothing behind it is a claim, not a result.
- 04
This is a count, not the count
Our agents' figures stay in their own column, next to the official ones and never mixed into them. The gap between the two is the most interesting number of the night, and blending them destroys it.
04How a result travels
Seven steps from a booth to a screen
Each step is a place a count can go wrong. Each one is closed by the software itself, rather than by a rule in a handbook nobody opens on election night.
- 01
One booth, one agent
All 176,623 polling units are a named position, each filled by one person appointed by the ward above them. Not a sign-up sheet, a chart with a name in every square.
One seat per booth
- 02
The app already knows their booth
It opens on the agent's own polling unit. There is no list to choose from, because a booth you can choose is a booth somebody can choose wrongly.
No dropdown, ever
- 03
Where they are standing is recorded
When the form opens, the phone's location is taken and compared with the booth they were appointed to. It backs up the filing. It never decides which booth is being filed for.
Location backs it up
- 04
The arithmetic is checked in their hand
Accredited cannot be more than registered. Votes plus rejected cannot be more than accredited. An empty form is not a result. Caught on the phone while the sheet is still in front of them, then checked again on our side.
Checked as they type
- 05
The sheet is photographed
The photo is shrunk on the phone before it is sent, so it goes through on a weak rural signal instead of stalling. We then seal it, so the image you look at next year is provably the one filed tonight.
Shrunk, then sealed
- 06
Somebody above them checks it
A coordinator for that area compares the figures against the photo. Nobody signs off their own work, not a ward coordinator, not head office. Change a number after it has been checked and it goes straight back to unchecked.
Never your own work
- 07
It is on the board seconds later
The moment it lands it counts at every level: ward, LGA, state, zone and nation. The situation room, the newsroom and the video wall all see the same number at the same second.
Six levels at once
05Who is looking at it
Three rooms, three screens
One count, shown three ways. The agent filing the result, the coordinator checking it and the producer putting it on air are doing three different jobs under three different pressures, so they do not get the same screen.
The agent's phone
Held one-handed, standing up, at night, on a signal that may not hold.
- Opens on their own booth, nothing to search for or pick
- Location checked against the booth they were appointed to
- Big number pads, a running total, and the maths checked as they type
- The result sheet photographed and shrunk on the phone
- Saved as they go, so a dropped signal costs a retry, not the figures
The checking floor
What is in, what is missing, and what needs a second look, with each coordinator seeing only their own area.
- Live coverage by state, LGA and ward: what has arrived and what has not
- A checking queue with the photo right beside the figures
- Anything odd flagged: more votes than voters, a booth reporting twice, one ward out of step
- A disputed result needs a written reason, and stops counting without being deleted
- The gap between our count and the official figures, biggest first
- Every action signed and timestamped
Ready for the studio
Built to be put on air directly, not screen-grabbed by a producer at 2am.
- Full-screen boards sized for a video wall and readable across a studio
- A web address your gallery software can point straight at
- Lower thirds and state cards that update themselves as results land
- How much is counted and the time are part of every frame
- A careful call: too early, too close, leaning, decided
- Download everything in your area as a spreadsheet
06On air
Graphics you can put straight on air
Not a dashboard somebody screen-grabs at 2am. A finished picture that keeps itself up to date and says how much is counted in every shot.
- A link, not a file
- Point your gallery software at a web address. Full HD, and a see-through background if you need one.
- Context built in
- How much is counted and the time are part of the picture, not a caption somebody forgets to add.
- It updates itself
- The graphic redraws as results land. Nobody re-exports anything halfway through a bulletin.
- A call you can defend
- Too early, too close, leaning, decided. How much is counted comes first, the size of the lead second.
National
- APC36.6%
- PDP29.1%
- LP25.4%
- NNPP6.2%
07The structure
Six levels, and one of them does the work
This is how Nigeria's results add up, top to bottom. Every figure at the five levels above is made out of one person, at one booth, filing one result, which is why the bottom row is the loud one.
| Level | Name | What it covers | Units | Who reports |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | National | The whole country | 1 | n/a |
| 02 | Zone | Geopolitical zone | 6 | n/a |
| 03 | State | State or the FCT | 37 | n/a |
| 04 | LGA | Local Government Area | 774 | n/a |
| 05 | Ward | Registration area | 8,809 | Coordinator checks it |
| 06 | Polling unit | The booth itself | 176,623 | Agent files the result |
Includes the 56,737 polling units added in 2021. One agent per booth, one result per booth, and a correction updates that result rather than adding a second one.
A number without its coverage is not a smaller truth. It is a different claim.
Every total we show, on the wall, in the studio, in what you download, arrives with the share of booths it came from attached to it. Not in a tooltip. Not in a footnote. Right beside the number, in the same frame, at a size you can read across a room.
08Our rules
Six things this system will not do
These are not policies in a document somewhere. They are built into how the software works, so nobody can quietly set them aside on the night.
A booth cannot report twice
One booth, one result. A correction updates that result, it never adds a second one. Two results from one booth is exactly the confusion this rule exists to prevent.
The booth is not something you type in
It comes from the agent's appointment, checked on our side every single time they file. A box where you type the booth name is a box somebody could change.
A disputed result is never deleted
It stays where it is, keeps its photo, and stops counting. Deleting it would be the most suspicious thing this system could possibly do.
Nobody signs off their own work
Built in and checked twice, so even the account with every permission in the system cannot approve a result it filed itself.
Colour is never the only clue
Every state carries its leading party's initials across it, every tooltip names the party in words, and the table under the map is the same information with no colour in it at all.
The photos are not public
Totals are public. The photographed sheet is not, it can show handwriting, a bystander, and exactly where somebody stood at a known hour. Only the agent who filed it and their coordinators can see it.
09Where it actually is
What is built, and what is not
Booth to board is working today. Two things are half-done and two are still to come. You should know which is which before you put an election night on it.
- Built
Booth to board
Filing, checking, photos, disputes, and totals at all six levels
- Built
Public results pages
National map, state pages, LGA and ward grids, and a live feed of arrivals
- Built
The checking queue
Each coordinator sees their own area, with the photo beside the figures
- Built
The map itself
State and LGA boundaries prepared in advance, so nothing has to be fetched on the night
- Partly built
Constituency results
Senate and House races still add up by geography rather than by constituency
- Partly built
The gap with official figures
Worked out and shown as a panel; it wants a page of its own
- Next
Filing with no signal
Save on the phone, including the photo, and send it when the signal comes back
- Next
Downloads
A spreadsheet of every counted result inside your area
10Request access
Bring us the election you have to cover
Tell us the contest, the date, and roughly how many polling units you can put a named agent in. We will tell you honestly what Poll360 will do for that night, what it will not, and what it takes to set up. Already working an election with us? Log in and pick up where your room left off.
- Situation rooms
- Party and coalition rooms running their own agents in the field
- Broadcasters
- Newsrooms and studios that need graphics with the count attached
- Observer missions
- Local and international observers who need their own downloads
- Campaigns
- Candidates who want to know what their own agents actually saw
Accounts are issued to named people by the room they work for, never signed up for in public. Prefer email? Write to access@poll360.ng and a person will answer you.