Tanzania announces biometric voter registration from July 1 ahead of 2025 polls

Tanzania’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announced that a biometric voter registration process will be conducted in the Zanzibar region from July 1. This is ahead of the country’s general elections billed for next year.

INEC Chairman Jacobs Mwambegele told reporters during a press conference last month that the voter registration exercise aims to take the total number of registered voters in the country to 34.7 million, up from the 29.7 million in 2020, according to a post on the electoral agency’s website.

The Prime Minister of the country Kassim Majaliwa Majaliwa will be the guest of honour at the voter registration launch, INEC says.

On registration centers, the INEC Chair says there has bene an increase after a review, with the number now at 40,126 for this year’s registration exercise, up from the 39,707 in 2020. One other novelty in the registration is the launch of an online pre-registration process. Citizens who have turned 18 years and above are expected to participate.

Once the voter registration window opens, Mwambegele says “the exercise will also provide an opportunity for pre-registered voters who have moved from one province or district to another to transfer their information from the county or state they were previously registered, and provide an opportunity for registered voters to update their information, including names.”

Apart from updating information in the voter registration database, citizens will also have the chance to be issued new voter cards.

The biometric voter registration kits to be used for the exercise, INEC says, are lighter (weighting 18kg) and easy to carry around, as opposed to the kits used in 2020 which weighed 35kg each.

Meanwhile, as the launch of the voter registration is awaited, the INEC called on institutions and civil society organizations to support voter education efforts.

The election agency published a call to tender to select those interested in the voter education campaign. The application deadline elapsed on May 31.

Ghana announces mop up voter registration exercise

In Ghana, where a limited biometric voter registration recently ended, a mop-up exercise will take place in August, Ghana Web reports.

The idea had been hinted by the Director General of Services at the Ghana Electoral Commission (EC), Serebour Quaicoe, who said in May that a mop-up exercise was likely to take place before September.

In a letter to the opposition National Democratic Congress, the election agency says the exercise will run for three days from August 1-3 in all the districts of the country.

The objective is to enable potential voters who failed to register during the regular window in May to have the chance to do so before the December elections.

Ghana held a limited biometric voter registration exercise from May 7-29.

The election agency says while it has begun addressing requests related to voter transfers, proxy voting and replacement of lost or damaged cards, it is also in talks with the main telco in the country, MTN, to address some network issues that created hitches during the limited voter registration, according to reporting by Daily Guide Network and Modern Ghana.

Article Topics

Africa  |  biometrics  |  elections  |  Ghana  |  Tanzania  |  voter registration