Africa-Press – Seychelles. Chief registration officer Wilfred Uranie certified the voters’ register of 2022 before handing it over to chief electoral officer Manuella Amesbury yesterday at the Electoral Commission’s headquarters in the presence of the electoral commissioners.
Annually on March 31, the chief registration officer has to certify the new register and present it to the chief electoral officer. So far the new register has a total of 73,849 voters with 37,785 females and 36,064 males.
The districts with the most number of registered voters is Anse Etoile with 4,019 voters, followed by Au Cap and Baie Ste Anne. The districts with the least number of registered voters are Roche Caïman with 1,979 voters followed by Port Glaud and the Inner Islands.
A total of 871 deceased people have also been removed from the register for the year 2021.
The number of eligible first time voters who turned 18 years old in December 2021 stands at 1,757. The number of eligible voters who celebrated their 18th birthday soon, as at December 2022 stands at 1,748. Therefore the cumulative number of eligible first time voters for the years 2021 and 2022 is 3,326. This is the targeted population for 2022.
The number of new registrations in 2021 for first time voters is 284, seven naturalisation, nine returning residents, one re-instatement amounting to 301.
The total number of voters conducting transactions in 2021 was 429 and the total number of identified centenarians verified in 2021 is 15 with the names of three deceased persons deleted on the new certified register 2022.
Chief registration officer Uranie said that they faced a few challenges and from January 2021 there was no movement in terms of registration until July. The verification exercise started in August with permission received from the Public Health Authority. The commission started with its outreach programme at the National Institute of Health and Social Studies (NIHSS) at North East Point.
From the NIHSS they proceeded to six other institutions and nine other electoral areas.
Mr Uranie said they had to verify the voters’ list after work, during weekends and that many times the people were not present and the officers had to wait.
The priority list for the registration is the eligible first time voters and the commission needing to get as many as possible to register. Another key group the commission is targeting is the people who have changed the names due to divorce or marriage.
Mr Uranie said for this part they are working jointly with the civil status and immigration department. The special registration programme will continue on Saturdays, starting with Au Cap on April 9.
The chief registration officer wishes to launch an appeal to the public to come forward and carry out the necessary transactions. He also made an appeal to the political parties to engage their members to also do the necessary transactions. This is to ascertain that the voters’ register stays updated.
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