LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) on Tuesday told the nation that about 6.9 million Malawians are expected to vote in the next year’s general elections following successful cleaning exercise.
The commission the news conference in the capital Lilongwe that it has also deleted 13 200 names from the voters’ roll because they had registered more than once.
MEC chairperson Jane Ansah disclosed that due to the removal of multiple registrations the final count of registered voters is 6,859,375.
This means 6.9 million Malawians will now be eligible to vote in the highly contentious tripartite elections whose leading contenders are Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) torch bearee President Peter Mutharika, UTM party leader Vice President Saulos Chiliman and Malawi Congress Party (MCP) president Lazarus Chakwera.
“In other words, the final figure has gone up by 3,080 voters overall .The Commission had always issued a cautionary statement that there may be variations to the figures when multiple registrations have been removed. Now I wish to inform the nation that during the cleaning exercise the Commission has removed 13 244 multiple registration,”
“For everyone who registered more than once we have maintained the first registration and deleted all the subsequent ones. All the deleted names at each centre have been listed at the end of each voters register. The list shows where the valid registration is maintained,”said Ansah.
She adds, “We have advised our staff that if a name of the person is missing they should also check on the deleted multiple registrants and advise the person to go and verify their details to the centre where they registered first, which is also indicated on the list,” she added.
Ansah observed that some of the districts which needed a lot of cleaning include Salima, Mchinji, Dedza and Mulanje.
She however asked prospective voters to go where they had registered to verify their names and see if all the details are intact before the voting day on May 21, 2019.
“The Commission is urging all electoral stakeholders to encourage people to turnout out in large numbers for the voter verification exercise. Those that have moved from the centres where they registered, they should know that this is the only period they can process transfers,” she said.