ElectionWatch: A Real-Time Digital Election Monitoring Platform for Nigeria -Architecture, Design, and Implications for the 2027 General Elections

Nigeria's electoral process faces persistent challenges including result manipulation, delayed collation, and limited transparency at the polling unit level. This paper presents ElectionWatch, a fullstack digital election monitoring platform purpose-built for Nigerian party agents operating within the framework of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The system enables verified party agents to photograph and submit official result sheets (EC8A forms) from polling units using Claude Vision-powered optical character recognition (OCR), with results collated in real time across the five-level Nigerian electoral hierarchypolling unit, ward, local government area (LGA), state, and federal. The platform incorporates a multi-layered integrity engine executing seven automated checks against every submitted result, a cross-level discrepancy detection system that flags inconsistencies between uploaded collation forms and system-computed aggregates, and an amendment workflow allowing agents to correct OCR misreads under strict conditions. With 166,006 polling units seeded from the official INEC register and deployment targeting the 2027 General Elections, ElectionWatch represents a significant advance in party-level election intelligence. This paper documents the system architecture, data pipeline, security model, and anticipated impact on electoral transparency in Nigeria. We discuss technical contributions, deployment constraints, legal considerations under INEC regulations, and recommendations for future development.