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]