Polls a massive undertaking

More than 271 000 people registered to vote during the last supplementary registration process in July, a large number of whom had turned 18 years of age since the 2015 regional council and local authority elections.

The head of the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN), Theo Mujoro, says those who had changed addresses since the last registration process were re-registered, and people who applied for duplicate voter cards were processed.

The ECN displayed the provisional voters' register countrywide in September to enable people to scrutinise it and register objections.

Mujoro said the register was also subjected to a number of integrity checks, such as the removal of duplicate entries and names of deceased persons.

“As we speak we are still looking into the register but I can assure the public that we will publish the voters' register in the Government Gazette on 6 November,” Mujoro said.

He said the announcement of the final voters' register would then be made.

Similarly, the ECN will provide a regional breakdown of voters, as well as the demographics of the voting population.



Election figures

There will be close to 2 400 polling stations in all 121 political constituencies on election day on 27 November.

Close to 13 000 polling officials will be deployed, and around 2 445 ballot units, and the same number of control units, will be used.

“It is a massive undertaking. Keep in mind we will be running two elections – the presidential and National Assembly elections,” Mujoro said.

There are eleven presidential candidates and 15 political parties that will contest in the upcoming elections.



Results centre

The ECN will put up a central election results centre at its head office in Windhoek where all votes from constituencies will be collated and from where the results will be announced within two days after the elections, Mujoro said.

He said the ECN intended to set up a “very interactive, high-tech” process at the results centre.

The centre will have two wings: an east wing where equipment like fax machines will be set up through which results will be received. The other wing will be the media centre.

There will be two big screens in the main hall where results in different formats will be displayed. The results will simultaneously be fed to media houses, and will be published on the ECN's online platforms.



Tallies

Mujoro said the ECN has on numerous occasions impressed it upon political parties - if they are “serious with this process” - to have at least one party agent present at each of the 121 collation centres in the constituencies where they can immediately access the results that will be announced by the returning officers.

“It may not even be necessary for people to come to Windhoek; they will just be wasting their time. There is no way the ECN can collate and announce a different result to the result announced by the returning officers at the collation centres,” Mujoro said.

He said this would enable political parties to set up their own result centres at their offices where they can collate the results as announced by the returning officers and compare them to those officially announced by the ECN.

Mujoro said parties do not even have to be at the central election result centre for the final consolidation of the results.

“You do not need to be there because the formula is defined in the constitution,” he said.



Parties' complaints

Mujoro said political parties often complain that they are excluded from the central election results centre, and this year the ECN plans “to do things differently”.

“We will try to ensure that we find space in the results centre where political parties can come,” he said.

Mujoro said he would personally give political parties a “walkthrough” during the first week of November and explain to them what each piece of equipment would be used for.

“We have made that promise to our parties,” he said.

CATHERINE SASMAN