When the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Nigeria’s electoral body, introduced the result viewing portal (IReV) in 2020, the promise was real-time, transparent result collation. The portal was designed to allow citizens to view copies of election results recorded at polling units. Yet, during the 2023 presidential election, it took INEC four days to declare a winner. Two months after the polls, only 94.68% of polling-unit results had been uploaded. Results moved from polling units to wards, then to local governments, states, and finally to the national collation centre. Meanwhile, citizens tried to piece together events from videos and screenshots circulating on social media. That period between voting and the official declaration was marked by an overflow of unstructur...