THE Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) at noon on Saturday finally made copies of the final voters roll available to political parties six days after the original date, which was Monday, November 9 and the number of voters shrunk suddenly by over 300 000 to only 961 175 voters.After the supplementary registrations in September, the voters roll swelled to 1,3 million voters, according to an ECN statement then.
However, ECN Chairman Dr Victor Tonchi afterwards corrected that figure, saying the figure was down to approximately 1,16 million after a cleanup of the register.
The printed summary handed out on Saturday broke down the voter figures for all 107 constituencies.
Yet, a quick spot-check comparing figures on the CD-ROM handed out Saturday with the four-page summary showed that the number of voters differed considerably.
In the Kabbe constituency of the Caprivi Region, 5 830 voters are now registered on the final voters roll according to the printed summary. On the CD-ROM only 4 956 voters appear.
In the Karas Region, 6 145 voters appear on the printed summary for the Berseba constituency, while only 5 575 voters are on the CD-ROM.
Another spot check for the Omusati Region revealed that 7 674 voters are registered on the Anamulenge constituency according to the printed summary, but the electronic PDF format of the voters roll on the CD show that only 6 406 voters names appear on the roll.
At Ongwediva in the Oshana Region the discrepancy is even bigger, with a difference of 5 000 voters. On the printed summary only 13 881 names of voters are registered, but on the electronic copy 18 889 names are registered.
Another quick check of the roll on the CD-ROM showed that 343 268 voters apparently obtained their voter card by sworn statements, about 30 per cent of the total of the 961 175 names on the roll.
No comment could be obtained from the ECN.
The Namibian
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