28 Aug 2016

Residents of Kgagodi, Diloro, Mogapinyana and Tamasane villages have expressed satisfaction with the amendment of the Electoral Act.

Residents of these villages have shown this contentment in kgotla meetings addressed by the Member of Parliament for Mmadinare, Mr Kefentse Mzwinila in their respective villages.

Mr Mzwinila informed residents that there are several changes made to the Electoral Act hence they should expect the changes in the country’s electoral process.

He informed residents of those villages that in the next elections, the traditional ballot papers will not be used, but they will be replaced by electoral voting machines.

He informed them that it is anticipated that the voting machines will curb the common delays that are experienced at polling stations and during the counting of ballot papers.

He said the old voting system has resulted in delays for a very long time and now that with new developments in the voting system, the voting machine will be introduced to overcome the challenges brought about by the use of ballot papers.

He said unlike the ballot votes, one of the advantages of the voting machine is that it does not have allowance for spoilt votes since the machine has been made easy for use with “press and select buttons” therefore will enable the user to select the party or candidates of  their choice through the press of a button.

He said the machine will also give the results shortly after the voting process has ended. Mr Mzwinila has also informed residents that the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) gave some advices concerning the voting system thus in the next election period, there will only be one voter registration whereas supplementary registration has been eliminated.

He said this will help address the problem of voter trafficking. He said it has been realised that some people take advantage of the supplementary registration by reviewing the voters roll then use the information to sabotage some candidates by sending their friends and colleagues to a certain constituency where they want to eliminate a certain candidate.

Mr Mzwinila also informed them that the registration fees for election candidates have been increased adding that if a person wants to campaign for a council seat, that person will be required to pay registration fee of P1 000 instead of P100 as was the case in the previous elections.

He said the parliamentary candidacy registration fee has been increased from P500 to P5 000. Mr Mzwinila said parliament has reviewed acceptable conducts during elections adding photography will no longer be allowed in polling stations and those who will be caught taking photos in polling stations will be fined P2 000 or three years imprisonment.

He also said it is illegal to remove somebody’s campaign poster and the penalty for doing that is  P2500 fine or three years imprisonment. He said people are also prohibited from campaigning during voting as that will result in a penalty fee amounting to P5000 or three years imprisonment.

For the election candidates, he said they should be at least 200 metres far away from the polling stations during voting and failure to do that the penalties will be a fine of P7500 or three years imprisonment.

Furthermore Mr Mzwinila said parliament has made decisions to increase the number of specially elected members of parliament by two, from four to six. He said the decision will also result in the increase of specially elected councillors.

For their part, residents of the four villages applauded parliament for seeing the necessity of bringing developments in the voting system to end delays and to speed up the voting process by introducing the voting machine.    

Mr Mompati Pitso of Kgagodi raised a concern that some people may try to cheat the machine and vote as many times as they want through deceitful ways. Thabo Samuel of Kgagodi complained that if supplementary voting is eliminated, it will deny some people who would have turned 18 years old few days after the closing of voters’ registration privilege to vote.

Ms Gabautwane Taolo of Tamasane expressed concern over poor network saying that it might affect elections.Although there were some worries concerning the new election procedures, many people showed contentment with the new development. They said it will bring change.

When Mr Mzwinila responded to their concerns, he said it is impossible for the machine to be hacked in favour of a certain party since the machine has no input/output slots that receive electronic waves/signals and it has no connection cables thus will use batteries.  

He said just like the ballot paper voting system, the election will start with the machine showing zero to indicate that voting has never been carried out. He said the voting machine was endorsed by two representatives from political parties in the country  who were sent to India to benchmark on how it works. ENDS