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Voter verification to be done via SMS

Those who registered for voting can verify their names through SMS
Those who registered for voting can verify their names through SMS

For the first time in Malawi, registered voters will be able to verify their voter registration identities through short message services (SMS) at no cost in collaboration between the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) and the Malawi Election Information Centre (Meic).

The move is expected to expedite the voter verification exercise as citizens will verify their identities at the click of a button for free, and using any mobile phone.

Speaking during the launch of Meic on Thursday in Blantyre, Meic’s Rachel Chavula said the SMS voter verification is just one of the services that will be provided by the Meic project in this year’s tripartite elections.

“We are also providing a platform for citizens to participate in the electoral process by reporting on incidences as they occur in their localities through simple SMS in their local languages at no cost. This will be the first of its kind on the African continent,” said Chavula.

The voter verification exercise has currently been suspended due to missing of some names on the voters’ roll.

Chavula explained that observers from civil society organisations (CSOs) that are collaborating for the elections will also be able to send information relating to the elections monitoring such as availability of ballot papers, ink and security issues, among other things. She said Meic will also deploy observers to all polling stations across the country.

Siphosami Malunga, executive director of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (Osisa), one of the funders of the project, said the collaboration between CSOs and MEC will ensure that citizens do more than just voting in the election.

And in his remarks, chief elections officer Willie Kalonga said Meic’s participation in the elections will help ensure free, fair and credible election as it allows citizens to report on incidents as they occur.

“MEC sees value in this programme and we commend the deployment of observers to all polling stations as they will keep an eye on the voting process and add value to the elections process. However, we call on Meic to share the information [that they get from citizens via sms] responsibly,” Kalonga said.

He said if well implemented, the project will set a good example in the Sadc region.

Meic is an initiative that provides a platform for CSOs to collaborate on elections observation, monitoring, rapid response and proactive advocacy. The platform has been previously named an Election Situation Room in countries such as Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Kenya.

In Malawi, it is being implemented with some improvements, making it slightly different from the Election Situation Room. It is being overseen by the Malawi Electoral Support Network (Mesn) with funding from Osisa, Hivos and the Open Society Foundations.

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2 Comments

  1. This is a nice development but my question to stakeholders is “how would one know that the face on the voters’ roll is really that of the person sending an SMS?”. I am asking this because there is a possibility of having correct information but with a wrong photo for a voter not forgetting that some people have already collected voter ID details.

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