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

Unlawful possession of voters’ card:

A related irregularity the Court received affidavit evidence on was unlawful possession of voter’s cards. A voter’s card is the identification mark that links the voter to his registered name. The voter has to produce it to the Presiding Officer in order to be given a ballot paper for voting. Under the Commission Act it is an offence for a registered voter to hold more than one valid voter’s card (see S. 26); and it is also an offence for any person to be unlawfully in possession of any voter’s card which is issued in the name of a voter or which is blank (see S. 28).

There were more than a dozen witnesses who deponed that they saw different people in unlawful possession of voter’s cards distributing them to persons not entitled to the cards. I will mention a few. Ojok David Livingstone of the Petitioner’s monitoring team for Mbale Municipality deponed that on polling day, following a tip-off about a lady distributing voter’s cards, he went with a police officer to look for Nakintu and found her at her home. She admitted that she had distributed 11 voter’s cards out of 50 she had received for distributing to the 1st Respondent’s supporters. She surrendered the balance of 39 voter’s cards together with a bottle of JIK, a tablet of soap and a drying rug which she said were to be used to remove marking ink from the finger of anyone who had voted. She was taken with the voter’s cards and the other items to the police station. Wafidi Amiri also monitor for the Petitioner in Mutoto, Bungokho, Mbale deponed that on polling day after observing suspicious conduct of the R.D.C., the Sub-county Chief, the local Movement Chairman, and one Sonya David, he followed the Sub-county Chief who was being driven by Sonya and when he caught up with the latter he found him carrying about 50,000 voter’s cards. He raised alarm and with assistance of the public arrested him to Mbale Police Station. The Sub-county Chief, Wamae Kenneth deponed in reply that he was ambushed by Wafidi Amiri. When he heard Wafidi raising alarm that the tax collector was stealing votes, he run away for fear of being lynched. He explained that he was returning the balance of undistributed voter’s cards to the sub county headquarters and that they were not 50,000 but less than 3000. I did not believe the Chief’s explanation. His conduct of running away showed that he knew he was in the wrong. Others witnessed less quantity of cards. Maliki Bukoli of Mbale Municipality witnessed the police arrest on Mukonge with 5 blank voter’s cards. Sulait Kule, the Petitioner’s monitor in Kasese received from one Kanunu 16 voter’s cards with a report that they had been given to him to supply to others for voting illegally. He took them to Kasese Police Station. Kakuru Sam of Rukungiri deponed that on 7th March when he collected his one voter’s card, he saw one Nshekanabo being given a stack of about 30 voter’s cards. Karenzyo Eliphaz also of Rukungiri, deponed that on 6th March at Rwenyerere polling station in Kihihi, he witnessed many new voters being openly denied their voter’s cards on the ground that they were the Petitioner’s “rebels;” and later their voter’s cards and those of voters who had died or migrated were given to LC I Chairmen to distribute to the owners which they never did. This offence appeared to have been spread, but the extent to which the voter’s card in unlawful possession were used to facilitate non-voters to vote or to enable registered voters to vote more than once, was not established.