Voter registration starts
The new biometric voter registration (BVR) exercise in Salima, Kasungu and Dedza districts yesterday pleasantly surprised thousands of the people by the speed at which their eligibility to vote next year was confirmed.
Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) and National Registration Bureau (NRB) also had a cause to smile yesterday: the exercise on this first day had a good turn-up, especially in rural centres.
In the three districts, however, there were some hitches, as some of the registration equipment malfunctioned and, in certain centres, security officers were greatly outnumbered by registrants.
The Nation observed that information and technology (IT) personnel roamed around the registration centres to maintain any malfunctioning equipment.
Those who presented their new national identity cards (IDs) at their centres were amazed to notice that immediately the cards were swiped, all their chip-installed data automatically got transferred to the registration system.
In as few as three minutes later, at most, the people could return home after being cleared as voters in the May 2019 Tripartite Elections.
Those who did not have IDs were ushered to desks where the data capturing occurred. These also were soon given a biometric barcode that will enable them to vote in the elections, even in the highly-unlikely case that their IDs will not be ready by next year.
In Salima, a registrant at Kalonga Registration Centre, Josephine Milole, expressed surprise to how swift it had been for her to get registered.
She said: “In 2014, I registered at this very centre and it took me over three hours to get registered. Today, I have been pleasantly shocked to notice that it has just taken me about three minutes to complete the whole process.”
Msalula LEA School Teachers’ Centre supervisor Ralpheon Njovu proudly stated that the registration is so fast that a person may complete it in about one and a half minutes.
Said Njovu: “In the morning, we had a small technical hitch where one of our scanning machines was not working well but the technical team managed to sort it out. We haven’t sent any of the people back because the process is just very fast.”
MEC commissioner Jean Mathanga said people are speedily served because the new system has eliminated the paperwork and interviewing of registrants needed in the old system.
“The BVR is faster than (the old) optical mark recognition,” she said.
Random interviews in Kasungu and Dedza also showed that the registration exercise had got off to a great start.
Notable drama in Kasungu concerned the failure of a centre to open at Lifupa Primary School, apparently after it had been ‘forgotten’. But by late yesterday, the district elections officials were busy trying to have the centre opened.
In Dedza, district commissioner Elisi Tembo said save for small technical problems, the first day registration exercise was a resounding success.
