The electoral commission has announced plans to register and verify village residents starting this Friday June 22nd to Monday 25th June 2018.
This comes at a time when the EC is planning to organize the long awaited Local Council and women village council elections that had been paused last year.
Justice Simon Byabakama, the EC Chairperson says there will be two registers, one for women residents who are 18 years and above, citizens of the country and are willing to participate in the election. Only women are to register in this one.
There will also be a general register for both men and women for participation in the LC1 and 2 elections. One must be a citizen of Uganda, 18 years and above, residents of a given area and willing to participate in the election.
He clarified that people who had registered last year, when the elections were supposed to be held, will not need to register again. Only those that moved from the villages they had registered in will be registering in their new residencies.
Meanwhile, since last year over 1138 villages have been added on the electoral maps, making it more than 60,000 villages that will be voting. The EC now has to carry out fresh registration in the newly created villages.
According to Justice Byabakama, residents will be expected to present their National IDs or NINs at registration points. Over 190,000 village election officers have been contracted to help in this exercise.
Unlike in other elections, civil servants will be allowed to participate in the elections both as contestants and voters as long as they contest as independent candidates. The chairman explains that this is the reason the exercise has been put on a weekend.
“We want to appeal to all workers, make use of this opportunity for registration. There will be no extension for the registration period” Justice Byabakama advised.
Registration exercise will be followed by display of the registers from 26th to 27th June 2018. He encouraged residents to go and point out any persons that could have died or moved to a different village.
The mode of elections has not yet changed, voters will be expected to line up behind their favorite candidates as stipulated in the law.
Election for women councils will come first on 3rd July 2018. Polling will start at 7am and voters will be verified by village election officials to ensure they qualify to join the line. All processes will end at 11am in the entire country so the lining can start.
Counting of voters will start immediately after lining up and announcement of results will be made immediately. The exercise, according to Justice Byabakama should take 30 minutes.
