The Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) has announced the rescheduling of pilot voter registration which was supposed to commence tomorrow August 21 2024.
MEC chairperson Annabel Mtalimanja made the announcement on Tuesday during the National Elective Consultative Forum (NECOF) at BICC in Lilongwe.
Mtalimanja said the primary aim of conducting pilot voter registration is to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of the voter registration process, identify and resolve any issues with the devices in the system and to refine our approach ahead of the actual registration.
The exercise is also designed to test the devices, confirm their usability and gather insight before the full scale voter registration.
The Commission plans to conduct a pilot voter registration which will take place in both rural and urban areas covering all regions of the country.
“The first reason for rescheduling is because there’s less restrictive stand taken by the Commission to allow other forms of national registration, apart from the national ID card that will require to be tested first and where necessary to change the configurations of the election management devices to ensure that they work effectively with the other other formats of identification. In other words, the commission would like to further engage with the National Registration Bureau regarding the technicalities of using the slips.
“And again we also want to have an elaborate engagement and awareness to the communities in the 100 sites that will participate in the pilot, just to ensure that there is a clear understanding to avoid confusion with the actual main exercise,” she said
However, Mtalimanja emphasized that the participants in the pilot exercise will also be required to register as voters when the official registration begins .
She further assured the public that the new dates for conducting both pilot and final voter registration exercises will be announced in due course.
According to Mtalimanja, every Malawian who was born before or by 16th September 2007 will be eligible to register as a voter.
Meanwhile, Mtalimanja said the commission has implemented and continue implementing measures that ensure that every eligible citizen has the opportunity to register to vote.
So far, 6500 devices along with the necessary accessories and consumer goods have been procured by MEC. The Commission has also received equipment for established a centralized data repository centre to support it’s operational information communication and technological needs.
There are 229 Parliamentary Constituencies, up from 193 in 2019; 509 Council Wards, up from 462 in 2019 and 6344 registration centres, up from 5002 in 2019 for the 2025 tripartite elections.
