Voters disappointed over missing voter location slips

ELECTION WATCH

Fred Kagonyera, a resident of Nakawa is an unhappy voter after failing to find his voter's location slip under the verification exercise that started over ether weekend.

Kagonyera was among other voters who on Monday rushed to the Naguru I polling station to get his slip but was told that it would be found at his previous voting location.

However, Kagonyera says even at his previous voting location the slip was missing

"I'm not sure where I'm going to vote from. This is very disappointing and time-wasting," a disappointed Kangonyera said in an interview with this reporter.

Kangonyera complained about poor service delivery, he asked the Electoral Commission to increase its manpower to ensure that everyone gets their voter location slips.

The same happened to John Ngonzi, who travelled from Entebbe to pick his slip, but left without it.

"I invested money and time to come and get my voters location slip, but I ‘m going back without it," Ngonzi lamented.

The Voter Location Slips (VLS) exercise started on January 3, to help voters easily locate their polling centers.

Expected to last for a period of ten (10) days, to January 12, the exercise is being conducted at Parish/Ward level across the country.

Miriam Nansubuga, a local council secretary of Kireka A said, instead of the E.C officials abandoning the slips at the voting centers they should get in touch with the local council leaders to supervise the exercise.  She also alleged that some slips had been "stolen" since there was no formalised custody.

 "We have registered a number of losses of the voter's slips due to the people who pick their colleagues' slips with the intention of denying them the voting right," Nansubuga said.

She further noted that "there is a problem with the transfers in the voters' register.

" Names of most of the voters who were transferred are nowhere to be seen on the voters' slips. I do not know what the problem is because the transfers that were made in the registers still have their names in the previous polling centers," she said.

According to George William Ochaya, the LC 1 chairperson of Naguru , the major challenge at Naguru 1, is the limited manpower which has delayed the exercise.

"We have only one person from the Electoral commission who is attending to the people and this has caused crowding among the people who would want to leave early and attend to their work," said Ochaya.

Ochaya called upon the E.C officials to deploy more workers in order to simplify the work.

According to the Electoral Commission, Ugandans can check their details online from the EC website, "the Voters' Register is the primary document for the purpose of polling. Accordingly, a voter whose name is on the Voters' Register but is unable to produce a VLS on polling day will be allowed to vote."