This question is posted by ACE on behalf of an ACE user.

Original question:

What are some best practices and country experiences for updating a national voter roll when voter registration is not fully linked with the national identification database? Complete re-registration in the case of our EMB will be costly, but we are concerned that duplicate registrations, deceased voters on the roll, and other challenges are undermining the credibility of the voter roll among political parties and other stakeholders. 

Any advice for conducting supplemental updates or mitigating these challenges would be greatly appreciated.

Summary of replies:

Practitioners replied to the question with several different suggestions and advice on how to update the electoral roll.

The problem was well recognized among the repliers. A long-term advice was to integrate the electoral roll with the civil registry to limit duplication and limit the presence of deceased people in the electoral roll. One of the repliers pointed out that the possibility of realizing an integration between registries is dependent on the permissibility in the laws in the given country.  

Besides integrating the systems, practitioners also suggested that repeated updates from the civil registry to the EMB would help mitigate duplication or the presence of deceased people in the electoral roll, as well as introducing a biometric system when not already in place. However, one of the respondents pointed out that in Nigeria, there are a multitude of different national identification systems – all independent of one another, complicating matters. Another more short term suggestion was presented, suggesting that the electoral roll could be cross-checked with the civil registry, making a comparison possible between two files; one where the registered appear only once, and the other containing duplicates and those who for other reasons are not able or mandated to vote. It was also suggested by one of the repliers that house-to-house verification combined with a cross-matching of fingerprints could limit duplication and wrongful registration. Another alternative short-term solution to conduct a voter verification process whereby a voter presents themselves to confirm whether their details are captured correctly was suggested. 

Resources available on ACE may also be helpful for anyone interested in this issue: the Voter Registration entry on the Electoral Operations topic, and the Cost of Registration and Elections in the Encyclopedia.

 

Contributing members:

• Lameck Ochieng Radigo

• Collins Chamunorwa Muchenjekwa

• Charles Obot

• John Maphephe

• Abdul Latif Shekh

•  Vishnu Persaud 

•  Francisco Barrera 

 

Hola como esta.

 

Lo primero que indudablemente le recomiendo es que de alguna forma en el futuro el rollo electoral (para mí el registro o censo electoral), sea un sub producto del archivo dedicado o a la identificación o al Registro de las Personas (Registro Civil), pero lo que puede hacer de manera rápida es una archivo centralizado con los archivos locales de rollos electorales, verificarlos es decir cruzar la información y saldrán dos productos finales: un archivo de buenos donde esta los que figuran una sola vez y los duplicados o con problemas o bajas de los rollos, como los muertos los repetidos, con errores o que no puedan votar por restricciones legales.

Eso es fácil con archivo planos, bases de datos o sencillamente con hojas electrónicas de cálculo (Excel), se hacen las comparaciones y se obtienen resultados parciales y se hacen iteraciones con los resultados. Espero le sirva la solución, que no es del todo lo definitivo que se debe aplicar.

It would be wise to use the latest electoral roll to conduct a house-to-house verification exercise.  This would allow for (i) retention of persons who are verified, (ii) registration of persons who are not registered to vote, and (iii) the purging of persons who are verified to be deceased from the roll.  This will guard against double registration although it should be expected that persons could attempt to register multiple times using different addresses.  Further, it is advised that a cross matching of the fingerprints (assuming that you engage in fingerprint capture) would allow you to eliminate cases of multiple registration.  This way the cost of preparation of the voters roll would be greatly reduced and confidence in the voters roll would be very high.  Moving in the foregoing described direction ought to have the blessings from the political stakeholders.

In my country (Bangladesh) is a practice voter registration process offline. Firstly we appoint enumerate to collect data from a voter by prescribed form and appoint supervisor who supervise voter is qualified or not. Then voter form come to registration officer and check it. after checking day will fixed for registration in certain registration center. After complete the registration process data will send central server for matching. After matching voter is enlisted in voter list.

To vote in South Africa’s elections, you must register as a voter. You only have to register once, unless you move (within South Africa) or your voting district boundaries change. If you have moved home (even a short distance) since you registered, your voting district and voting station may have changed and you may need to re-register. During municipal and by-elections, you can only vote at the voting station where you're registered to vote, so it's essential to re-register when you move. www.elections.org.za

This is one of the many challenges confronting electoral system in Nigeria. We have many autonomous data bases that are not linked - drivers licensing system, national identity management system, Bank Verification Number System and the voter registration system, all independent of each other, with their needless cost due to duplication of bio data registration. There have been calls for integration of these registration systems, but it is not done yet either due to lack of needed political will or the requisite technology/infrastructure. It is very frustrating when someone cannot vote in an election because he/she had relocated from where he/she did voter registration and/or did not apply for transfer of his/her voter registration detail to another polling unit long enough before the general elections.  

Good day colleagues.

This challenge is mainly caused by the laws of the country. Do the laws allow such a linkage? if not, then I propose the following:

1. The civil registry has to regularly, say monthly, provide the EMB with a consolidated list of all deceased citizens who are of voting age.

2. The EMB has to remove the deceased from the database by deactivating their details. Kindly note that complete removal is not advisable as there may be errors in data capturing which may lead to someone being errornously declared dead.

3. To curb duplication, the use of Biometric System is advisable.

 

Have a nice day.

I believe national identification is the foundation of voter registration in the sense that one cannot register without first being identified as citizen of the nation concerned. Having participated in the monitoring of the voter verification process ( a process where voters present themselves to confirm whether or not their names and particulars are correctly captured in the register of voters) in Kenya, I left with the opinion that we can have quality register if we want. Voter Information Network & Education (VINE), an organisation for which I work is developing a tool to employ to this end.