21 Apr 2024

The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) will embark on the inspection of the general voters roll exercise which starts today and expected to end on June 2. 

In an interview, IEC secretary, Mr Jefferson Siamisang explained that the 42-day exercise of inspection of the roll was in line with Section 15 of the Electoral Act. 

Mr Siamisang said the general voters roll only had names of people who registered during the general registration exercise that was held from January 5 to February 3.

 He said copies of the constituency rolls were available for inspection at the offices of the Secretary of the Commission, district commissioners, council secretaries or town clerks and principal election officers across the country. 

He said the purpose of inspecting the roll was to ensure that voters’ details were correctly captured in order to rectify possible mistakes. 

“This is a very important exercise to ensure that particulars which include names, addresses, national identities and principal residences are correctly captured and their names appear at the correct polling stations,” he said. 

Mr Siamisang said inspection of the voters roll was also a critical stage in the production of a clean voters roll as it allowed prospective voters and all elections stakeholders to check if there were any irregularities before the final voters roll was gazetted. 

The anomalies, he said could be some voters not registering at their principal residences, among others.

He said for such anomalies, Section 18 of the Act allowed for objections to be reported at principal registration officers who would take the matter further for court procedures to be followed. 

He also said for convenience of voters, the commission had also provided copies of polling district rolls at some Dikgotla in each constituency for Batswana residing at those areas to have an opportunity to view the roll. 

“This is important because in the event where a voter’s name is not captured in the roll, it can be correctedimmediately rather than to wait until voting day,” he said. 

He therefore urged the public to take part in the inspection of the general voters roll exercise. 

Meanwhile, he said Section 16 (3) of the Electoral Act allowed whoever wanted to have a copy of the roll to get it from the commission at a fee to be determined by the secretary. 

He explained that currently the fee was P1.75 per page of the roll. He however warned that the law did not allow individuals to access or buy soft copies and hard copies can be purchased at the secretary’s office or IEC offices. 

“If one wants a council ward roll, they can pay for those pages and same applies for constituency roll. One can also purchase a polling station roll and pay for the applicable number of pages,” he added. Meanwhile, Mr Siamisang said supplementary voters roll for the national registration which was held from February 25 to March 15 was still be processed and would be inspected for 21 days, once ready. Ends