08 May 2019

The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has registered over 930 000 voters for the 2019 general elections against the targeted 1.3 million of the 1.5 million eligible voters. 

IEC communications officer, Mr Osupile Maroba was not in a position to reveal the aggregation of registered voters as the organisation was still compiling data. 

He said inspection of the general voters’ registration roll, which takes 42 days to correct mistakes captured during registration, started on April 8 and will end on May 20. 

Mr Maroba explained that the inspection of the first and second supplementary registration, takes 21 days each, following which IEC would correct and certify voters’ rolls, and after that, the transfer window would be opened. 

Mr Maroba said copies were available for inspection at the offices of principal registration officers and principal elections officers in the 57 constituencies during office hours. 

He stated that inspection was done to rectify errors made during registration which might include wrongly captured identity numbers or names. 

 Mr Maroba said the inspection exercise was also meant to scrutinise statuses of registration, whether valid or invalid. 

With regards to challenges encountered during registration, he said some people wanted to register using Omang receipts, some wanted to use passports, while in some polling stations, some people wanted to register where they were not eligible, and that in some instances some wanted to register twice. 

“Our system is harmonised with information on national identity cards and once the name is captured, the next time you try to register at another polling station, your status registration will be rejected,” he said.

The first national voter registration exercise, which took place September 3-November 11 last year registered a total of 753 000 voters while the first supplementary registration execise, December 17-March 31 registered 40 738 voters. 

Meanwhile the second supplementary registration which was conducted April 15-28 in all the 57 constituencies registered 139 000 plus voters. 

Registration was conducted at all the 2260 local and 36 external polling stations. ends