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Abstract
In this paper, efforts were geared towards highlighting the significance of the voting machine i.e., (smart card reader) as a key factor that determined the shift in voting behavior and political participation in the 2015 elections,vis a vis Nigeria’s quest for sustainable democracy in the 21stcentury. We established that in Nigeria’s 2015 general elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) made commendable attempts to strengthen Nigeria’s electoralprocess but inspite of the employment of the Electronic Machine in the highly competitive elections of 2015, the elections was still marred by incidents of violence, threats, killings, and attempts at manipulating the process. This paper argues that the employment of the voting machine though challenging and complicated at the moment, will indeed eventually succeed in fostering credible, fair and free elections in Nigeria as obtainable in advanced democracies of the World. The study therefore recommends that although the adoption of the voting machine faced a lot of challenges and fundamental shortcomings, it must not be rejected in subsequent elections as demanded by sections of the Nigerian public as it is the safest and truest route to Nigeria’s quest of achieving sustainable democracy in the 21st century.