Leader of Opposition Matthew Wale raised serious concerns on the vulnerability with the secrecy of the ballot and integrity of the electoral’ roll
The Opposition Leader highlighted this when speaking on the Electoral (Amendment) Bill 2023 in Parliament last week.
Wale said Clause 9 permits a returning officer to open sealed envelopes of counterfoils and register of electors for the purpose of reconciling any anomalies.
“This gives flexibility and therefore reasonable. However, I wish only to add that the Electoral Act 2018 and regulations removed serial numbers from ballot papers. The counterfoils still have them. But the ballot paper does not. This is a serious vulnerability,” he told Parliament.
Wale said two factors are critical to the integrity of the electoral process and must be protected.
“First the secrecy of the ballot. And second, the integrity of the electors’ roll. Each ballot must be traceable to an elector on the roll. The current situation makes this impossible,” he said.
The Opposition Leader said the justification for that change in 2018 was to protect the secrecy of the ballot from MPs who were seeking to identify their sure voters for purposes of the CDF.
But Wale said the conduct of some MPs in this matter cannot be grounds for compromising the critical need to ensure that each ballot is traceable to the electors’ roll.
He said an offence ought to be created for seeking to pierce the secrecy of the ballot post-election and punishment by the vacation of seats.
“This will reflect the seriousness attached to the secrecy of the ballot,” he said.
Wale said this matter must be remedied before the April 2024 elections.
