IMPROVE VOTER REGISTRATION

THE voter registration exercise kicked off on a shaky note with most stakeholders complaining of the slowness of the process. It has also become clear that the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) did not anticipate the overwhelming response received so far.

It seems the ECZ had anticipated fewer people to show up for voter registration and had placed less personnel to man the registration centres. In fact, in most cases, there is one one person and a security officer manning the registration centre. Not at all adequate to cater for the number of people turning out to register.

For the past three days, there has been a general complaint concerning slowness of the process and how long it is taking for one person’s voter’s card to be processed. On top of this, there is the technical glitches of the machines failing and people have to wait for the system to be rebooted.

This is not what was anticipated when the ECZ announced that it would run the voter registration for 30 days and capture nine million potential voters.

At the rate the exercise is going, the possibility of achieving the target may seem way too ambitious.

However, all hope is not lost and it is definitely not too late to make changes and improvements to the system so that the set targets could be achieved.

The ECZ has admitted that there are issues with the process which need to be improved on. That is a starting point which stakeholders have been asking for in the last three days.

Yesterday, the ECZ said it would be beefing up staff and registration kits to enhance capacity of registration centres.

ECZ acting Public Relations Manager Sylvia Bwalya said they had noted a number of concerns from stakeholders and the general public.

She said the ECZ has since started deploying additional kits and officers in some registration centres.

“At the beginning we thought the process would take about seven minutes but we have realised that it is taking a little bit longer and we are addressing that concern,” Ms Bwalya said.

Indeed, it is taking more than seven minutes for one person to be processed and issued with a voter’s card. Most reports indicate that it was taking between 10 to 30 minutes for one person to be issued with the card because there is only one officer responsible for noting down details, taking pictures, printing and laminating the same before eventually issuing the card.

This has resulted in people taking more than five hours on queues to be processed, a situation that may discourage some into giving up.

It is therefore imperative that this matter is resolved quickly so that the ECZ can remain confident of meeting its nine million target within the 30-day period.

The worry for most stakeholders is that the ECZ has indicated that it would do away with the old voters’ registers, meaning a totally new register will be created from the same slow process.

Therefore, the quicker the glitches noted are sorted the better for restoring public confidence in the process.