Elections: the do’s and don’ts

MANY registered voters are not sure whether they may vote only in their own constituency or in all 13 regions.

As far as The Namibian has been able to establish, voters can cast their ballots in any of the 13 regions for the national and presidential elections on November 27 and 28. It is only during regional and local authority elections that voters have to vote in the constituency where they live, according to the website of the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN). In the case of the national and presidential elections voters can vote at any polling station in the country.Several readers have contacted The Namibian in the past few weeks, asking whether they can vote if they have to travel to another town or region.’We are confused because when we registered in September, we were told we may only vote where we reside, but we have to travel from Windhoek to Keetmanshoop during the elections,’ two cousins from Khomasdal, who just completed their Grade 12 exams, told The Namibian on Monday. ‘For the presidential and National Assembly elections, Namibia becomes one single constituency,’ a staff member at the ECN said on inquiry.’Therefore you can vote anywhere in the country provided that you have your voter’s card, which you must present at the polling station.’Some voters also fear that the registration cards they obtained in 2003 and 2004 might not be valid any more.If one looks at this card, one can see that the years 2002 to 2012 are printed on the right-hand rim. This means that the cards are valid until 2012. In Namibia, the ECN conducts a new registration drive every ten years and the next one will be in 2013. Another query received was whether prisoners and people in hospitals can vote. Since 1992 the ECN has deployed mobile polling stations to make it possible for people to vote at hospitals, old-age homes and prisons. This will again be done in this year’s elections.Next Monday, the final and cleaned-up voter’s roll will be published.Although the ECN initially said they had registered 290 000 new voters two months ago and the roll had increased to 1,3 million voters, they later backtracked and said the roll had been reduced to around 1,16 million voters. The 3,2 million ballot papers for the two elections arrived from South Africa on Saturday, were kept under tight security next to the Government Garage and were set to be sent to the 13 regions yesterday. The ECN will have 997 fixed polling stations and 2 213 mobile polling stations, according to Theo Mujoro, Deputy Director of Operations at the ECN. ‘This will bring the total to 3 210 polling stations,’ Mujoro told an election training workshop last week. There will be at least two locally organised observer missions for the elections, in addition to expected observer teams from the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the SADC Parliamentary Forum, the African Union (AU) and the United Nations (UN). Observers have to apply to the ECN for accreditation, according to an amendment made to the Electoral Act this year. The accreditation form for election observers is now available online on the ECN website at www.ecn.na.The Act stipulates that observers must be impartial and independent of any registered party or candidates; be competent and professional; and follow a code of conduct issued by the ECN.The Namibia Institute for Democracy (NID) recently completed the training of 300 local election observers who will be deployed in all regions for this month’s elections. These observers are drawn from civil society groups. A second initiative is being organised by the churches. The Steering Committee on Church and Elections in Namibia and the Council of Churches in Namibia (CCN) have formed a Joint Election Observation Committee. The CCN’s General Secretary, Reverend Maria Kapere, heads the joint committee. The churches have identified 150 members as observers and supervisors in the different constituencies.According to the Electoral Act, accredited observers can observe the voting, the counting of votes, the determination of the result of a poll and the announcement of the results. For the first time in Namibia, results will be announced at each polling station as soon as counting is completed. Counting of the ballots starts immediately on November 28.