By Mulengera Reporters
At a specially-convened news conference on Monday, the Electoral Commission chairman Justice Simon Byabakama, while responding to a reporter’s question, revealed that the number of dully enrolled and registered voters in Uganda had grown from the 18,103,603 as at the 2021 polling day to 19,925,574 as per now.
Byabakama explained that this enlarged number of registered voters includes the 361,432 adults who have newly been registered and added onto the register during the 20 days (20th January-10th February) of the national voters register update exercise which ended on Monday 10th February.
These are adult citizens of Uganda who for some reason had never become registered voters before. The rest of the new voters are the outcome of the continuous registration of new voters which the EC is mandated to undertake, for instance, as part of by-elections’ preparations for LC and MP positions that become vacant. There are also people who walk over to the EC offices after NIRA enrollment for national ID-acquisition purposes.
Enrollment and acquisition of the ID NIN number qualifies one to be a Ugandan citizen and that same NIN can equally be used to apply for and obtain enrollment onto the national voters register as a voter.
Byabakama also used the same Monday news conference at EC headquarters along 7th Street Industrial Area Kampala to announce extension of national voters register update exercise for another 7 days.
This means that those adults who had missed applying to become new voters or to be transferred to new polling stations have up to next Monday 17th February. Byabakama explained that in the added 7 days, the EC update staffers at Uganda’s more than 12,000 parishes or wards will be working from 8am to 6pm; including on weekends as has been the case during the just-ended 20 days’ exercise. And there will be no more extension thereafter.
The extension was informed by the enthusiasm Ugandans have exhibited towards getting involved in the update exercise, which Byabakama said had partly been slowed down because of limited availability of update kits which the EC got from NIRA which had been using them since 2014. Having worked since 2014, many of these have become old and mal-functional.
The government refused to allocate money for purchase of new kits for 2026 polls road map activities and instead directed the EC to leverage on what NIRA has since they are both government entities doing closely related work. Byabakama admitted that, because of such challenges, the update process had been slowed a lot but thanked Ugandans for their patience and understanding.
In granting the extension, which naturally has financial implications, the EC also widely consulted with its field staff at the update centers besides considering requests from key stakeholders and partners like political parties. Byabakama also thanked stakeholders like CSOs and individuals planning to contest for working hard, to mobilise citizens to embrace the exercise. The media supportive role in relaying the update-related information was also appreciated.
Flanked by other EC Commissioners, Byabakama clarified that the total number of 19.9m voters currently on the register, according to the latest updates, doesn’t yet reflect students who have just turned 18 years and the Commission has to transition them from the NIRA register onto the national voters register for 2026.
These have to show interest by turning up at the update centers so that their citizenship is authenticated or verified (using their NIN numbers) before the EC can proceed to allocate them a polling station basing on which parish they are residents in and would desire to vote from or originate from.
Byabakama said that a lot of processing was still ongoing to capture all that data and such numbers involved. Predictably, these students coming on as first time voters are going to be very many and most likely in millions.
A journalist asked Byabakama what was going to happen to ensure that such S5 & S6 students, who have just turned 18 years, equally benefit from the 7 days extension which the EC has just granted given that they have just returned to school for their first term.
In his answer, Byabakama explained that the EC expects many such first time voters to have taken advantage of the first 20 days of the update exercise but quickly added that the electoral body was open to working with headteachers and school heads to facilitate such S5 & S6 students to take advantage of the 7 days extension.
He said he will be instructing his Returning Officers in the districts to closely work with school heads to establish the number of such students who have just turned 18 and work out a comprehensive arrangement to enable them get enrolled onto the register and assigned to polling stations located in their parishes or wards of residence or origin (should they be interested). (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
