Low turn up as EC starts updating national voters' register

By David Lumu

The general update of the national voters’ register Wednesday started at a slow pace. According to the Electoral Commission, the biggest challenge that marred the exercise was the fact that most Uganda could not understand why they need to check and update their data.

The Electoral Commission (EC) attributes the snail-pace response to the voter register update exercise on limited awareness.

However, the EC officials are optimistic that the response will swell in the subsequent days.

The exercise will take 23 days, and the EC has warned that those who don’t register will not participate in the 2016 general elections.

Speaking to New Vision, Paul Bukenya, the senior public relations officer of the Electoral Commission (EC) said that stations countrywide had opened and that Ugandans are expected to turn-up to crosscheck their particulars.

 “If you are not registered by April 30, then you will not participate in the national general elections,” Bukenya said.

Bukenya said that there are 3,800 parishes countrywide and that the EC has deployed at least four people to conduct the exercise on each of the parishes. This means that the exercise has created 15,200 jobs already.

“Stations countrywide opened on time and each district has already received the materials. The only challenge so far is that people are asking why they should check for data. But we want to clarify that we are doing update of the register to give opportunity to people who didn’t register to come and register,” he said.

The other reason, Bukenya said, is for people to crosscheck their national identity card data and confirm the particulars.

“The Electoral Commission extracted data from the national ID for the register. So the voter register update provides an opportunity for people to confirm their particulars,” he said.

The voter register update can be done in two places—the parish where one resides or where they originate from.

Last week, Joseph N. Biribonwa, a commissioner said that the purpose of the general update exercise is to register eligible Ugandan citizens of 18 years and above, who are not yet registered as voters, as well as those who were not registered during the mass enrolment exercise for purpose of issuance with a National Identity Card.