VOTERS ROLL OUT, MOST PLACES WILL ACCESS IT TODAY - EBC

MBABANE - Despite a slight delay in the distribution of the 2023 General Elections voters roll, the EBC has assured that most places would have access to it by today.

According to the general elections calendar that was issued by the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC), the voters validation exercise was supposed to start yesterday. The validation is an exercise where the EBC publicises the list of people who have registered to vote and residents, competent witnesses and the inner councils of communities around the country go through it to verify if the people who were registered to vote in that particular community actually qualify. The voters validation exercise will last until July 12, 2023.

Distribution

The distribution of the voters validation was slightly delayed though the EBC managed to quickly rectify the problem. Last evening, Reverend Sipho Tembe from the EBC, urged all emaSwati to start going through and scrutinise the voters register as of yesterday, following the successful registration process. "We will have members of the commission in various parts of the country, where the voters register will be pinned. We encourage all sectors of the populace who registered for the elections to check the voters register,” he said.

In an earlier interview with EBC’s Communications Officer Mbonisi Bhembe, he had confirmed the delays in the publicising of the voters roll. The list was supposed to be distributed on Wednesday so that yesterday the process would have begun, though it eventually did but late in the evening.
Bhembe explained that the reason for the delay was that they had last minute changes from it. The officer said the changes included the format as well as the overall appearance.

He highlighted that it was noted on the day it was supposed to be distributed that there was too much information that was available from the voters roll they initially produced, some of which was a breach of privacy policies that registrants had trusted them with.“On behalf of the commission, I would like to sincerely apologise to the entire nation for the inconvenience caused by this,” he said.

Changes

The officer also noted that the last minute changes in the voters roll could have been realised earlier, however, he noted that they had to extend the registration for four days which then contributed to the delay. The registration stage was supposed to end on June 14, 2023, but it was extended to June 18, 2023, which means the less than three days to prepare the voters roll.

It had been discovered that during the voter registration, some people were registered offline, meaning they were not immediately uploaded in the EBC system. Some were automatically uploaded while others had to be uploaded manually after the completion of the registration, which also had to be done after the equipment was brought back at EBC. The first step of the validation exercise, Bhembe said people should first verify if they appeared on the register.

If one does not appear of the voter register, Section 17 of the Voters Registration Act of 2013 states that one would need to make a claim to the commission by filling in forms that would be available with the clerks or online.
The section states that:
 (1) A person who has duly applied to be registered and whose name is not included on the appropriate register of voters may make representation to the registration officer for his name to be included on the register within seven days.
(2) The manner and time within which such representation under subsection (1) may be made shall be prescribed by the commission.
(3) A claim under subsection (1) shall be determined by the registration officer and if a person is not satisfied with the decision of the registration officer, the person may appeal to the commission within 10 days of the decision.
(4) The commission shall consider the appeal within 14 days after the appeal was lodged, and the commission shall notify its decision to the registration officer and the person who appealed against the decision of the registration officer.
(5)  A person who is dissatisfied with the decision of the commission may, with leave of the High Court, appeal against the decision within twenty eight days of the decision.
During the validation exercise, resident registrants will also inspect the list of people who noted the interest to vote in their constituency.

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