The republic of uganda in the supreme court of uganda at kampala

Mismanagement of voters’ register:

I have already indicated that the Petitioner made several complaints against failure to comply with the Commission Act. Some relate to voter registration. Apart from what I have already considered under the first issue, the other complaints were in sub-paragraphs 3(1) (e) and U) of the petition, which in a nutshell are (1) that the 2nd Respondent “failed efficiently to compile maintain and update” the voters’ register and (2) that it “failed to display copies of voters’ roll for each parish or ward for a period of not less than 21 days.” It was argued that as a result, the voters’ register contained many flaws in that, names of non-voters remained on the register while those of entitled persons were omitted. In a rolled up defence in its answer to the Petition, the 2nd Respondent denied the first allegation generally and pleaded that in any event, such failure, if any, did not affect the result, and in addition that it was not a ground for annulment of the election. In answer to the second complaint, the 2nd Respondent pleaded that it displayed the voters register for a total of five days, and that in any case, failure to comply was not a ground for annulment of the election.

It seems to me, without intending to oversimplify the matter, that the Petitioner’s contention in this regard is substantially helped, if not made out, by the evidence provided by the 2 Respondent. I will illustrate shortly. First let me consider the relevant law on the matter. The Commission Act prescribes two important exercises to be done prior to holding an election. The first exercise is to update the register up-to an appointed date. The object of the exercise is twofold: (a) to enable newly qualified voters to apply for their names to be entered on the register, and (b) to remove from the register names of persons who have ceased to be eligible voters. During that exercise, a registered voter may also apply for transfer of his or her registration to another parish or ward. The second exercise is the display of a copy of the voters’ roll for each parish or ward, at a public place within the parish or ward, for a period of not less than 21 days. I should reproduce here three sub-sections of S.25 of the Commission Act, to highlight and underline the object of the second exercise. Sub—sections (3) (4) and (5) read as follows:

“(3) During the period of the display of the voters’ roll under this section, any person may raise an objection against the inclusion in the voters’ roll of any name of a person on grounds that the person is not qualified to vote or to be registered as a voter, in the constituency, parish or ward or that the name of a person qualified to vote or to be registered has been omitted.