WINDHOEK – United Democratic Front (UDF) president Apius !Auchab is worried about the way the voter registration process is being conducted in some areas as that could cause major loopholes in the electoral system.
He says if people registered through sworn statements are allowed to become deponents for others who do not have the necessary identification documents this could compromise the entire voter registration exercise currently underway. !Auchab said he observed in towns like Khorixas, Walvis Bay and Omaruru that people who did not have proof of identification and were sworn in by others were allowed to stand in for others through sworn statements. “If it’s going this way, it is wrong because the person can also bring in someone else who is not from that constituency,” said !Auchab. He also reasoned that it would be wrong to wait until the supplementary voter registration drive to correct mistakes in the system. To register as voters, people are required to have a valid ID document, a passport or proof of citizenship, but if they do not have any of those documents, they need a sworn statement by two registered voters who know them personally and who can attest that the person is an eligible voter. Voter registration started on January 15 and will end on March 02. When approa Director of Operations of the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN), said the law is very clear and that a voter who was registered through a sworn statement has no right to serve as a deponent for someone else. “If the observation is true, it is wrong. We need evidence of that,” Mujoro said.
However, according to him the law applies only to the national and presidential polls and not to local authority polls, where a person who was registered through a sworn statement could still act as a deponent for someone else. He said at the local authority level, someone who is also registered through a sworn statement could be a deponent for up to ten people, who do not have municipal bills to show that they have lived in a particular constituency for any length of time. Mujoro said at the level of national elections, deponents are required to produce their original identification documents.
By Magreth Nunuhe