Sluggish voters’ online pre-registration worries MMD

THE ongoing voters’ pre-registration is dragging because citizens are not well sensitised on the matter, the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) has said.

It says it was worrying that the online pre- registration had captured less than 100,

000 in almost a month.

“The pre- registration exercise is coming to an end on Friday, November 6, 2020 but captured only about 75, 000 as of the end of October despite starting on September 21, 2020,” said MMD nationalsSecretary, Reverend Reuben Sambo.

Mr Sambo said the Online Pre- Registration gives an indication of where the country was going with the actual voter registration because there had been no sensitisation on both online and physical pre-voter registration exercise.

He observed that there has been no excitement from the people for the exercise because a lot of them were not aware that they have to pre-register.

Mr Sambo said with the old voter registration cards having been declared void in the 2021 general elections, there was need for a vigorous sensitisation campaign so that citizens are well informed about the registration process.

“The online pre-voter registration provides a window that helps us to see what can easily happen, if you have not registered even up to a million, how are you going to register nine million voters in one month?” he wondered.

Mr Sambo said facts on the ground are that most people don’t know that they have to acquire new voter’s cards even though they have old ones, a sign that the required number of people might not be captured within one month.