Nampula: Problems with voter register persist – AIM report

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Nampula: Problems with voter register persist – AIM report

7:58 CAT | 14 Mar 2018

Photo: Twitter @TxekaMoz

Despite attempts by the Mozambican electoral bodies to improve their performance, problems with the electoral registers were again reported on Wednesday during the second round of the mayoral by-election in the northern city of Nampula.

According to Wednesday’s issue of the “Mozambique Political Process Bulletin”, published by the Centre for Public Integrity (CIP), there were several instances of voters in possession of apparently valid voter cards, but whose names could not be found on the registers.

Exactly the same thing had happened in the first round, on 24 January, and had prompted the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE) to reissue, in hard copies, the registers used in 2014 (the last time there was any voter registration).

Thus at a polling station in the Ntota primary school, three voters with cards which had numbers of polling stations at that school found that their names were not on the register. At Teacane secondary school, with 11 polling stations, several would-be voters could not find their names on the register, even though three of them said they had voted in the first round. The STAE technician on duty could not solve the problem and said they should return home.

A particularly puzzling case was that of a voter whose name was on the electronic version of the register, but not on the hard copy. A crew from the independent television station STV filmed the saga of this man as he tried to secure his right to vote.

He had what seemed to be a valid Nampula voter card, but he could not find the right polling station inside a school that contained several. A STAE technician on duty checked his name against the electronic version of the register on his laptop computer.

His name was there and so he was directed to the correct polling station. But when he got there the staff could not finds his name on the hard copy of the register. So he went back to the STAE technician who rang up the STAE office in Nampula. He was told to wait, but by midday no solution was forthcoming.

More worrying were apparent cases of identity theft. There were at least two cases in the neighbourhood of Namicopo where people went early in the morning to their polling stations, with valid identification, only to find that their names had already been ticked off the register – which means that somebody had voted in their name (or, just possibly, that a member of staff had carelessly ticked off the wrong name).

In some cases police were closer to the polling station than the 300 metres allowed by law. In one case, they were just 30 metres away, but moved when journalists told them they were too close.

In one instance, however, police acted to stop an abuse. At the Mulila primary school police arrested two people who were moving along the queue of voters trying to confiscate their voter cards (this would have stopped them from voting, unless they were carrying another accepted form of identification).

In one case of outright vandalism, reported by STV, Renamo members tore down sample ballot papers on display at one polling centre. Renamo said the sample papers were a form of “illegal campaigning” for the Frelimo candidate, Amisse Cololo.

But the sample papers contain the names of both candidates, Cololo and the Renamo candidate Paulo Vahanle, in the positions for which lots had been drawn (Cololo at the top of the ballot paper, and Vahanle at the bottom). Such sample ballot papers are stuck on the walls to assist voters, and have been used regularly in Mozambican elections.

Although on Tuesday, STAE announced that around 1,000 observers had registered, one of the main, and most credible observer bodies, the Electoral Observatory, complained on Wednesday morning that it had only received 71 of the 153 credentials it had applied for. The Observatory said it had given the names of the observers to STAE well in advance.

#NampulaDecide #Mocambique

Observadores sem credenciais: A plataforma da Sociedade Civil para a Observação Eleitoral que na primeira volta fez a contagem paralela de votos (PVT) solicitou a emissão de 153 credenciais para seus observadores em Nampula mas apenas recebeu um 71.

— Ntatenda (@ntatendana) March 14, 2018

#NampulaDecide #Mocambique | Em algumas Escolas já começou o processo de apuramento e contagem dos votos, tal como é o caso da EPC de Marrere (foto). pic.twitter.com/0lkmemfh42

— Ntatenda (@ntatendana) March 14, 2018