Lack of Documentation
Not having any papers at all is one of the
biggest problems in the voter registration and identification systems in Africa
and South and Central America. Many
countries require some documentary evidence of identity and residence, and most
of Latin America requires a national ID card – which requires documentation,
such as a birth certificate -- to obtain. Many of these countries are
impoverished, some have undergone years of armed conflict, and many have large
numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs).
These conditions lead to large portions of the population lacking
documentation of any kind.
The number of people in Latin America who
are undocumented is in the millions. These individuals cannot even start the
process of registering to vote. They must first overcome oftentimes difficult
barriers, including foremost obtaining a birth certificate, which can be very
complicated, before they can register to participate in elections. Although the data is less specific regarding
this problem for Africa, it is clearly a major challenge in a number of
countries on that continent too.
Honduras presents an example of how a
complex process can thwart citizens from becoming documented. In Honduras a
person who was not registered at birth will have to apply for a birth certificate
in order to get the national ID card. To register the birth of a child, one or
both parents must go in person to the civil registry office in the municipality
where the birth occurred and fill out a birth registration form. One or both
parents must present their own identity card and a medical certificate for the
birth, if the birth took place in a hospital. If the child was born at home,
the birth report must be provided by the midwife or by any other person who
attended to the birth. That report must contain, among other information, “the
midwife’s name, the number of her identity card, her place of residence, her
signature confirming that she was the person in charge during the birth, and
photocopies of the identity cards of two witnesses.”[i] These
requirements present an array of potential obstacles: the parents may not have
identity cards; travelling to the municipality may be a hardship; the midwife
may not have an identity card; and so on.
According
to UNICEF,
In sub-Saharan Africa, more than half of all births are
unregistered. In some cases, impoverished families cannot afford registration
fees or the cost of travel to a registration site. There is also a lack of
awareness, particularly in rural areas, of the potential benefits…Birth registration
in West and Central Africa is further complicated by armed conflict.
Displacement throughout the region has left thousands of unregistered refugee
children who have no legal identity and often no access to formal schooling,
health care or other social services. In Côte d’Ivoire, for example, the armed
conflict is rooted in ethnicity, and the citizenship of ethnic groups from the
north has been challenged on the basis of birth documentation. New regulations
have withheld national identity cards unless a birth certificate is produced to
verify citizenship, and the process of verification
is lengthy and complicated.[ii]
The overwhelming majority of the Sudanese population has no
identification papers. [iii]
a. Who are the Undocumented?
The problem of lack of documentation is not
unique to any one group, but it is much more prevalent a problem in certain
communities. These include the
indigenous, displaced populations, people living in remote rural locations, and
those living in poverty.
The
Indigenous: The
largest population lacking documentation in Latin America is the indigenous.
Throughout the region there are huge numbers of indigenous with no identifying
documents whatsoever. In Ecuador, as of 2007, the civil registry estimated at
least 1.5 million unregistered citizens, about 10 percent of the population,
mostly among the indigenous population in the Amazonian provinces. 500,000 were
of voting age.[iv] In 2009, again the Civil Registry estimated roughly 500,000
qualified voters, primarily from the Amazonian indigenous people, were not
registered.[v]
The Inter-American Development Bank (IADB)
estimates that 10 percent of Guatemalans lack any documentation, including
birth certificates, while 40 percent of indigenous Guatemalans are
undocumented.[vi] Some analyses conclude it could be as much as 50 percent among
rural indigenous, especially women.[vii] Some Guatemalan experts estimate that approximately one million
Guatemalans lacked identification in the last election.[viii]
The 2001 census in Bolivia found that
nearly 10 percent of Bolivians had no identity documents, while the National
Police, who are responsible for disseminating ID cards, estimated that 30
percent of Bolivians had no documentation. Other reports claim percentages of
undocumented in indigenous communities as high as 50 percent, in a country
where 62 percent of the population is indigenous.[ix]
The
Displaced: Many Latin Americans and Africans are
undocumented because they were displaced during civil or regional conflicts and
their documentation was either destroyed, stolen, left behind, or lost. Among
these, Guatemala and Colombia stand out. In Guatemala, the war caused the
displacement of between 400,000 and one million people.[x] As part of the Agreement on Resettlement of the Uprooted Population
Groups of 1994, item 7:
[xi]
7. The lack of
identity documents in the majority of the uprooted population increases their
vulnerability, limits their access to basic services and their exercise of
their civil rights and their rights as citizens. This requires urgent solutions.
Consequently, the Parties agree on the need to take the following measures:
7.1 In order to
facilitate issuing identity documents to uprooted individuals as soon as
possible, the Government, with cooperation from the international community,
will emphasize its efforts to expedite the necessary mechanisms taking into
account, when pertinent, the registries of the uprooted communities.
7.2 Review of Decree
70-91, the temporary law to replace and register birth certificates, civil
records destroyed by violence, to establish a system that is adequate to the
needs of all affected populations with registration procedures that expedite
said procedures free of charge. For these purposes, the opinion of affected
sectors will be taken into account. Identity and personal documents will be
issued as soon as possible.
The Temporary Law on Personal
Documentation, which was originally meant to take effect from 1998 to 2001 but
was extended to 2003, was an attempt to make issuance of ID cards more
flexible, in recognition of the difficulty those affected by the armed conflict
would have in getting the ID under existing rules. It ultimately proved
insufficient[xii] as many citizens remained excluded from the process.[xiii]
In 2011, according to the Colombian government
around 3.9 million people were internally displaced in Colombia.[xiv] According to the independent Observatory on Human Rights and
Displacement (CODHES), the figure was around 5.3 million.[xv]
According to the Internal Displacement
Monitoring Center there were an estimated 9.7 million IDPs across just 21
sub-Saharan African nations in 2011.
Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Somalia continued
to be the countries with the largest internally displaced populations in
Africa.[xvi]
Research conducted on behalf of
the Economic
Community of West African States noted that the internally displaced in West
Africa often lack of identity documents, reporting, “IDPs often lack basic
documentation, which can also preclude them from being able to exercise their
political rights, such as the right to vote. For example, an estimated 80
percent of Ivorians displaced in the 2010-2011 post-election crisis have lost
their civil and land tenure documents.”[xvii]
The
Rural and the Poor: It is not surprising that the
combination of poverty and living in a rural or remote area is highly
associated with a lack of documents. For example in Bolivia research shows that
poverty is the biggest factor associated with lack of documentation.[xviii] With respect to Ecuador, the European Union has reported that the
undocumented population “is located in remote, non-accessible areas along the
borders with Peru and Colombia, as well as in certain areas of the coastal
provinces… Since the Civil Registry offices are located in provincial and
cantonal capitals, citizens living in rural and remote areas have fewer
possibilities to register.”[xix] In Nicaragua, the European Union reported that it is particularly
difficult for indigenous populations, who tend to have higher rates of poverty
and illiteracy and tend to live in remote areas, to obtain identity cards.[xx]
b. Examples
As noted above, in Bolivia in recent years,
lack of documentation among much of the population, and consequently voter
disenfranchisement, has become a major problem, especially among the indigenous.[xxi] Poverty is the biggest factor associated with lack of
documentation, followed by the issue of the undocumented communities living in
remote areas of the Amazon.[xxii]
Lack of documentation is also a problem in
Cameroon. While there is no specific data on how many people are without
documentation in Cameroon, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) uncovered
high numbers of Cameroonians who were not registered at birth and therefore are
unlikely to have birth certificates, a prerequisite for getting other
documents. Various studies have found in recent years that only between 70 and
76 percent of Cameroonians are registered with the State. Citizens in rural
areas are much less likely to have had their birth registered. If one was not
registered at birth, one must go through a judicial procedure to become
registered, which can cost between $20 and $200USD.[xxiii] Other
data show that children of minorities, street-children, and other vulnerable
children are more likely to remain unregistered. The registration of births by the poorest quintile is 51% while
the richest quintile registers at a rate of 91%.[xxiv]
Insufficient Institutional Capacity
Lack of capacity to fully, efficiently and
effectively implement a voter identification system, especially one that
requires one particular type of document to vote, is widespread among the
nations of Africa and Latin America.
Many countries start out with ambitions of having a uniform voting
document only to find it impossible to effectively provide that document to all
eligible voters in the country. Lack of
resources, skills, manpower, and environmental and geographical challenges are
just some of the barriers governments and elections administrators confront.
This observation should serve as a flag for
those countries that seek to go in the direction of making their
identifications systems more complicated or more high-tech. Good intentions may fall to the reality of
the conditions on the ground.
Whatever voter identification process a
country decides to adhere to, it must first ensure that it has the capacity to
implement the process properly so that all eligible voters are able to meet the
requirements. For example, countries that believe that fraud is widespread and
can only be addressed with a national ID system will have to take measures to
assure that all citizens have the resources, access to, and ability to obtain the
national ID promptly. If a country intends to make registration a two-step
process whereby people register and then later must obtain a voting card it
should have the staff and equipment in place to carry out both stages. States
that wish to require the capture of biometric data in the registration and
identification process must have the funding, skills, training, and equipment
to do so in a sustainable, economically feasible, uniform and efficient way.
This has not always been the case.
a. Examples
Over the last several years the voter
registration process in Cote d’Ivoire has been quite dysfunctional. In 2009 The
Carter Center reported that the registration and identification process was
continually delayed due to factors overlooked by the original implementation
plan. The technical teams for registration often found that many people came without
the requisite documentation, especially in rural areas. As a result, people had
to rush home to come up with the necessary documents. “Local government offices
were overwhelmed with the demand, were often distantly located, photocopiers
were unavailable in rural areas, birth certificates were difficult to trace on
the basis of existing identity cards, and applicants faced additional costs if
they had to submit a judicial request to receive a birth certificate.”[xxv] The statement went on to say that “the public demand for the
required documentation could not be met for several months, forcing people in
the former rebel zone (CNO) to await the arrival of mobile courts as well as
the launch of the process to reconstitute civil registries. Overall, the
documentation requirements and practical difficulties of complying with the
process may have excluded certain categories of the population, notably the
poor.”[xxvi] The European Union (EU) observer report from 2010 discusses the
launch of a biometric registration phase in Cote d’Ivoire, conducted through a
French legal company. “Technically complex and crystallizing the profound lack
of confidence between the political parties, the voter registration phase was
prolonged from six weeks initially planned and lasted 10 months.”[xxvii] The 2012 Carter Center report was similarly critical of the complex
procedures and last minute legal changes.
The government of Uganda launched a new
photographic registry in 2001. When used in 2006, at least 2 million people were
not able to obtain their ID cards. In 2010 the commission was better prepared
but the president demanded that they begin again with a new biometric system using
fingerprint technology. Everyone had to register anew. Four million people
registered, but their ID cards were never produced.[xxviii] According to the Commonwealth, although the law provides for the
issuance of voter cards, the commission decided not to use them because they
did not have the resources or time to issue them; therefore, the only
identification requirement at the polling station was to have one’s name on the
registration list.[xxix] The country is still trying to implement the new biometric system,
but as of this last year only 400 cards were issued.[xxx]
Kenya, a country that requires the use of a
national ID card for registration and voting, has also confronted capacity
issues. A 2012 National Democratic Institute (NDI) report noted, “In July 2011, news
reports indicated that approximately four million youth were in danger of
disenfranchisement due to non-issuance of national identity cards. This was
attributed to inadequate material resources to facilitate registration and to
issue identity cards, which had resulted in the Ministry’s suspension of
issuing new national identity cards between January 2011 and July 2011. While
the process has since resumed, it is believed that millions of youth remain
under threat of disenfranchisement.”[xxxi]
Many
countries develop systems without sufficient analysis of their ability to carry
them out. This has frequently been the case in Africa where breakdowns in the
system have led to voter disenfranchisement. Whatever a
country decides to require for voting, it must first make sure it has the
capacity to implement the process properly so that it does not exclude voters
as a result of technical and logistical failures.
b. The Particular Problem of
Requiring a National ID
Many political actors in Africa, including
election management bodies, express a desire to move toward a national ID
system for the purpose of voting and other transactions. There is nothing
inherently objectionable about the concept of a national ID card. However, the
capacity of states to implement a national ID program in such a way that it
does not cause disenfranchisement is an issue. It is unclear whether most
states in Africa are in a position to do so, and the results are mixed among
those countries that already have such systems. For example, in Kenya, whose
logistical challenges have been discussed, it reportedly takes two to six
months to obtain an identity card,[xxxii] which can mean some voters may not have it in time to register to
vote.
The experiences in Latin America, where
most countries require a national ID to register and vote, are instructive.
Honduras represents a rather dramatic
example. The process of obtaining an ID card can take between four to six
months.[xxxiii] The National Registry of Persons (RNP) reportedly has one million
ID cards that have not been distributed as people have tired of continually
returning to RNP offices to find the card not yet available and therefore have
stopped trying. The problem is that the RNP only prints cards one day a week; the
printer is so old that this is all it is capable of.[xxxiv]
In Guatemala, the plan in 2007 to
re-register the entire population was badly mismanaged, a fact that was
compounded by outright corruption. In 2011, many Guatemalans did not have
the new ID card before the vote took place. Some people did not pick them up,
some went only to find the card not ready, and some found that the cards
contained mistakes. As a result, the Congress was compelled to amend the law to
extend the validity of the old identity cards through January 2013.[xxxv]
Before the 2010 election in Colombia, the
Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE) reported that 1.2 million citizens had applied
for identity cards but had not picked them up.[xxxvi] One of the difficulties is that the government sends out
mobile units to register people -- but often then the people must travel on
their own to an urban center to get the ID. In some areas the only way to
travel is on the river by boat and this is complicated and expensive, too
expensive for many. There have not been enough efforts to distribute the cards
in remote areas. Moreover, it can be dangerous to travel in some areas given
the ongoing conflict. In some cases people are not even aware that they need to
pick up the cards because there is no mode of communication.
In Nicaragua, the failure of the election
management body to deliver identity cards in 2011 resulted in protests and
violence in some areas.[xxxvii]
Direct and Indirect Cost to Voters
One significant issue impeding voter
registration among the poor is the direct and indirect costs associated with
registering and obtaining documents. Particularly problematic are countries
that require a national ID card and charge for that card or the underlying
documents required for that card —what in the United States would be referred
to as a “poll tax.” For example, Cameroon charges the equivalent of more than
$14 for an ID card. In 2011, to encourage registration in advance of the
election, the government lowered the cost to approximately $5.39,[xxxviii] and ultimately made them free for the registration period.[xxxix]
With respect to Peru, The Ministry of Economics
and Finance found a few years ago that
The population living in poverty or extreme
poverty is not in a position to assume the costs that are really necessary when
completing all the processes to have personal documents issued. In this sense,
getting a birth certificate is free, but it is impossible for this population
to afford the expenses involved to travel to the nearest health post and
request a birth certificate, and for this reason birth certificates cannot be
issued massively. For this same reason, this part of the population does not
always register births, and registering the children later on is impossible for
them because it can cost between S/.5.00 [$1.96 USD] and S..50.00 Nuevos Soles
[$19.63 USD] in some municipalities. The possibility of having a DNI later on
entails a registration cost of S/.23.00 Nuevos Soles [$9.00USD], a rather high
cost for the aforementioned sectors since it represents 20% of their per capita
monthly income.[xl]
In Ecuador,
where 37 percent of the population lives on $2 per day,
ID cards cost approximate $2. In one province, the ID costs $10.[xli] Similarly,
in Brazil
many poor, rural people do not have the
money to get to the county seat to register.[xlii] As referenced, in Colombia, the government has
sent out mobile units to register people, but with a few exceptions they must
travel on their own to an urban center to pick up the finalized ID. In some
areas the only way to travel is on the river by boat, a complicated and
expensive means of transport.[xliii] In El Salvador, renewal of an ID costs more than $10 USD.[xliv]
There
are also fees attached to acquiring an identification card in Guatemala. An ID
costs 85 quetzales,[xlv] although by law
“individuals who are part of the social groups that RENAP’s Directorate
determines as not having the economic means to pay for the DPI” can obtain the
ID for free.[xlvi] The IADB reports low
income precludes affording the indirect costs of processing a registration,
such as the trip (travel from the village to the administrative center of the
municipality), the loss of work hours, etc., in addition to the direct cost of
the document (neighborhood card or the process to register the birth
certificate when it was not registered on time), since the Civil Registry
offices are located in the cities that serve as administrative centers for
municipalities.”[xlvii]
[i] Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Honduras: The procedure for obtaining a
birth certificate and a death certificate, and the information indicated on
those documents, 29 January 2010, HND103348.FE, available at:
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4b8631db5.html.
[ii] UNICEF, Birth Registration
and Armed Conflict, 2007, p. 26
[iii] Democracy Reporting International, Assessment of the Electoral
Framework Final Report Sudan, November 2009.
[iv] European Union Election Observation Mission, Constituent Assembly,
Ecuador, 2007, p. 27.
[v] European Union, Republic of
Ecuador – Presidential and Parliamentary Elections, Statement Of Preliminary
Findings and Conclusions, 26 April 2009, p. 7.
[vi] Mia Harbitz, Maria del Carmen Tamargo, The Significance of Legal
Identity in Situations of Poverty and Social Exclusion, The Link between
Gender, Ethnicity, and Legal Identity, p. 10.
[vii] Maria del Carmen Tamargo, The Under-Registration of Births:
Analysis of Gender and Ethnicity Variables in Guatemala, Inter-American
Development Bank, at 2.2 and 5.2.
[viii] Interview with Eduardo Nunez, elections expert, Guatemala, May 24,
2012.
[ix] Maria del Carmen Tamargo, El
Subregistro de Nacimientos: El análisis de las variables de género y etnia en
Bolivia, Inter-American Development Bank, January 2009, p 5; p. 11.
[x] Maria del Carmen Tamargo, The Under-Registration of Births:
Analysis of Gender and Ethnicity Variables in Guatemala, Inter-American
Development Bank, at 5.3.
[xvii] Elizabeth Ferris and Chareen Stark, Internal Displacement in West Africa: A
Snapshot, Brookings-LSE Project, January 2012, p. 18.
[xviii] Maria del Carmen Tamargo El Subregistro de Nacimientos: El análisis
de lasvariables de género y etnia en Bolivia, Inter-American Development Bank,
January 2009, p. 17.
[xix] European Union Election Observation Mission, Ecuador, Final Report,
2007, p. 31.
[xx] EU Election Observation
Mission, Nicaragua 2011, Final Report on the General Elections and Parliamentary
Elections, p. 28.
[xxi] Maria del Carmen Tamargo, El Subregistro de Nacimientos: El
análisis de lasvariables de género y etnia en Bolivia, Inter-American
Development Bank, January 2009, p. 5, p. 11.
[xxiii] Civil Registration Support in Cameroon Evaluation of UNICEF-support 2002-2011Yaoundé|The Hague, December 2011, pp. 6-7.
[xxv] The Carter Center, General Conclusions on the Côte d’Ivoire
Identification and Voter Registration Process, May 6, 2009, p. 2.
[xxvi] The Carter Center, General Conclusions on the Côte d’Ivoire
Identification and Voter Registration Process, May 6, 2009, p. 2.
[xxvii] European
Union Mission of Electoral Observation in Côte d’Ivoire, 2010, p. 5.
[xxviii] Interview with Simon Osborn, NDI, April 30, 2012.
[xxix] Report of the Commonwealth
Observer Group, UGANDA PRESIDENTIAL AND PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS, 18
February 2011, p. 12.
[xxx] Interview with Simon Osborn, NDI, April 30, 2012.
[xxxii] Institute for Education in Democracy, Designing A New Voter Registration System In Kenya: A Recipe for Regaining Voters’ Confidence in the Electoral Processes, A Baseline Survey On Voter Registration Design in Kenya, 2010, p. viii.
[xxxiii] Interview with David Fleischer, Political Science Institute, University of Brasília, June 1, 2012.
[xxxiv] Interview with Salvador Romero, NDI Honduras, June 5, 2012.
[xxxv] International Crisis Group, Guatemala’s Elections: Clean Polls,
Dirty Politics, June 16, 2011 p. 10.
[xxxvi] Organization of American States, Informe De La Misión De Observación Electoral: Elecciones Locales En La
República De Colombia 28 De Octubre De 2007, April 8, 2008, p. 20.
[xxxvii]The November 2011 Elections in Nicaragua: A Study Mission Report of
the Carter Center, pp. 8-9.
[xli] European Union Election Observation Mission Constituent Assembly,
Ecuador, 2007, p. 28.
[xlii] Interview with David Fleischer, Political Science Institute, University of Brasília, June 1, 2012.
[xliii] Interview with Francisco Herrero, Pablo León, NDI, June 19,
2012.
[xliv] European Union, Republic of Ecuador – Presidential and
Parliamentary Elections, Statement of Preliminary Findings and Conclusions,
April 26, 2009, pp. 24-25.
[xlvi] Decree Law 90-2005 Article 51.
