IEC warns against voters' roll 'false' objections
Goitsemodimo Kaelo | Tuesday June 14, 2022 06:00
On Thursday, the IEC issued a release informing members of the public that it had completed compiling the voters’ roll for the first supplementary voter registration conducted between January 17 and March 31. As thus, the IEC said it has opened for the inspection of the said voters’ roll from June 6 to 27.
“The public is hereby informed that, in accordance with the provision of Section 14 of the Electoral Act, the Secretary to the office of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has completed the compilation of a roll of voters for the first supplementary voter registration conducted between January 17 and March 31, 2022,” read the release in part.
“The roll is now available and ready for inspection by the public in accordance with the provision of Section 16 of the Electoral Act. The inspection of the roll is scheduled to run for 21 days from June 6 to 27 on weekdays and during working hours (7:30am–12:45pm and 1:45pm–4:30pm) only.”
Whilst Maroba encouraged the public to participate in the inspection of the voters’ roll to check if there is any form of misrepresentations in the roll, he advised Batswana to ascertain themselves first of the correctness of the information before lodging objections.
In a brief interview with The Monitor on Sunday, Maroba encouraged Batswana to inspect the roll and register their objections for inclusion in the roll for that constituency of any person’s name.
However, he warned that those who raise objections must ensure that they are factual and without any malice as those that lodge untruthful objections may be penalised.
“When you raise an objection against anyone’s name appearing on the roll, make sure that you have the right and correct information because otherwise if it is found that you were wrong on your objection, that person can lay a charge against you and get you charged,” Maroba warned.
He said the inspection also allows the public to check if their names and other details are correctly captured in the voters’ roll.
With the inspection of the voters’ roll already on, Maroba said he was not in a good position to comment on the turnout, as they are yet to collate information from the stations.
“At the moment I cannot give you authentic information on the ongoing voters’ roll inspection because this is taking place at the outstations, so we are yet to collate information on the turn-up. But we expect and encourage the public to take a keen interest in the exercise,” he said.
Maroba conceded that the P10 deposit for registration of an objection remains a challenge, but it remains the law. He encouraged those who wish to register objections but cannot afford the fee to engage with those parties with a primary stake to assist them to register the objection.
He explained that the P10 objection registration fee is refundable in the event the objection becomes successful.