Home » Media Centre » Blogs » Why its Important for the IEBC to get the voter registration process right
The way we register voters is inefficient. Our last election proved that. The inquiries that took place after the election estimated, “that there were 1.2 million dead voters on the elections register.” And, while one ghost vote may not make much of a difference in an election 1.2-million ghost votes certainly will.
The Independent Review Commission on the General Elections (the Kriegler Commission), which examined the integrity of the electoral process i.e. what went wrong, how, where and when found that one of the major flaws in our electoral process is the process of voter registration. The process of voter registration, and vote counting was so flawed that the commission stated of the process, “Even if you wanted a re-tallying of the results still you won’t have sorted out this mess.”
The recommendation made by the Kriegler Commission to sort the country’s flawed voter registration process was the adoption of new voter registration procedures, and the creation of a new voter register to replace the outdated one.
Hence the proposal to the adopt Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) for the 2013 election. BVR is an automated system that requires voters to go through some kind of biometric analysis, finger printing or an iris scan. The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) had intended to register 18 million voters using BVR to avoid situations of multiple voter registration and ghost voting. The IEBC opened its tender process for the provision of Biometric Voter Registration kits in February this year and it seems the procurement process has been mired in controversy ever since: allegations of extortion, bribery, favouritism, political interference etc.
Since the controversy surrounding the procurement of the BVR kits emerged, the IEBC terminated the process and announced it was starting was starting the process a fresh. However since then the IEBC has notified the public that it is scrapping the acquisition of BVR machinery and will be reverting to a manual system of voter registration.
Given our past history there is strong there is a strong argument against manual voter registration, however that’s another post. Whether or not one agrees with the IEBC’s decision to terminate the BVR process and revert to manual registration of voters, the need for a credible voter registration is undeniable.
Voter registration is arguably the one of the most important functions of the electoral administration. Proper voter registration makes it possible for the electoral authority to verify voter eligibility and control the legitimacy of the voting process, by confirming that those who vote meet the eligibility criteria, vote only once, and vote only in the area in which they are registered. The legitimacy of any electoral process is called into question if there are problems with the voter registration process, and particularly with the integrity of the voters list.
Proper voter registration protects the political process from fraud and manipulation. Without proper credible voter registration mechanisms individuals could quite possibly be able to vote more than once in the same election and
cross constituency lines to vote outside their constituencies. The IEBC needs to ensure that only eligible voters have a chance to chose who leads the country through the ballot.
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