The voter registration period ran from 13 October to 1 November. It was primarily intended to allow people who had reached the voting age of 18 since the last general elections, in 2009, to be registered and receive their voter cards.
Anyone who had not registered in previous years, for whatever reason, was also invited to register. People who had lost or damaged their voter cards could also replace them during this period, and anyone who had moved into the three municipalities could transfer their registration.
According to the figures provided by the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE) to AIM on Monday, the full registration figures are as follows:
Quelimane
New voters: 10,052
Cards reissued: 11,176
Transfers: 4,107
Total registered electorate: 134,545
Pemba
New voters: 6,491
Cards reissued: 4,733
Transfers: 702
Total registered electorate: 88,011
Cuamba
New voters: 2,065
Cards reissued: 3,101
Transfers: 219
Total registered electorate: 45,898
The total registered electorate is the sum of those who were registered in 2009 plus those who have registered now. The register is inevitably inaccurate because STAE has been unable to remove the names of voters who have died since 2009.
This is a longstanding headache for Mozambican electoral statistics. The bodies that are responsible for registering deaths have never forwarded this information on to STAE, although it is supposed to be part of their duties.
As a result the registers always contain more names than the real number of registered voters.
Post published in: Africa News