EDITORIAL: Merging elections with technology

The Electoral Commission of Namibia’s (ECN) failure to harness the benefits of technology is among the major factors driving up both the cost of elections and voter apathy.One of the keys to getting people to vote is by ensuring that the majority of, if not all, eligible voters are registered to vote.The voter registration process should be easy, accessible and secure so that every citizen can exercise their fundamental right to vote.Namibia’s voter registration laws need an overhaul to meet the needs of our current society.The majority of the 1.7 million eligible voters are young people under the age of 35, who are - in most cases - very tech-savvy. But despite this age demographic, our laws and electoral processes remain rigid and continue to indirectly fuel voter apathy.Modern laws must enable ECN to operate in a flexible manner by adopting online voter registration platforms.For those voters without access to technology, we must ensure that registration points are flexible instead of the static system we have adopted.Currently, all 4 297 registration points are fixed, because the so-called mobile stations only entail moving a fixed point from one location to another after a certain period of time.Mobile registration points should be those that follow the crowd. This can be done by deploying mobile teams to areas where pensioners are collecting their old-age pension, sports events, schools and so on.

EDITORIAL: Merging elections with technology

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Namibian Sun 2025-06-19

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EDITORIAL: Merging elections with technology

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Namibian Sun 2025-06-19

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