Bauchi State office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has lamented that a total of 62,680 Permanent Voter Cards (PVC) are laying unclaimed in its vault awaiting collection by the owners.

INEC also said that so far, only a total of 6,000 PVCs have been distributed across the state, while appealing to all those who have registered to go to the nearest INEC office to confirm their status and collect their PVCs.

The disclosure was made by the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Ibrahim Abdullahi on Wednesday during a stakeholders engagement on election matters in the state held at the INEC office in Bauchi.

He warned against double registration saying that the Commission as at 13th May 2022 had registered a total of 175,177.

The Commission lamented that the unclaimed PVCs piling in the INEC office in the state would amount to waste of efforts, resources and time if they remain unclaimed.

Ibrahim Abdullahi further warned that all political parties in the state must strictly adhere to the guide lines of internal democracy as any defaulting party would be excluded in the forth coming 2023 general election.

According to him, the election guidelines, Electoral Acts and other regulations have been issued to the parties for the 31 state Constituencies, 12 federal Constituencies, and 3 Senatorial districts including one governorship seat in the state.

The Commissioner then said that the Commission had evolved some innovations that would make the process smooth, including face Verification instead of thumb printing in order not to disenfranchise anyone including persons with disability.