Anger has erupted within the National Alliance for Change (ANC) party over issues with the national voter registry ahead of the legislative and regional elections scheduled for April 20, 2024.
Candidate submissions closed on March 6th, yet political parties are encountering numerous challenges while awaiting the publication of the approved lists. Some candidates’ voter card numbers are not found in the national voter registry database.
Éric Dupuis, an advisor to the ANC president, expressed his frustration over the situation, stating “This is unacceptable.” The malfunction in the electronic registration system is causing significant harm during the candidate submission process as some lists are being rejected due to unrecognized voter card numbers.
In other words, these numbers cannot be found in the national voter registry database. According to the ANC, this situation is leading to harassment and resentment within the party. If a list contains a candidate whose card is not recognized, that person must be removed from the list, or the entire list is rejected. So far, the ANC claims to have encountered this issue in seven constituencies.
At the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), officials acknowledge the problems and state that all political parties are affected. However, they urge for calm. “Indeed, some individuals had to register multiple times,” explained CENI President Yabre Dago. “But we allowed them to rectify the issues with the lists.” The CENI asserts that it identified nearly 100,000 duplicates, which were removed from the Togolese electoral lists during the last file revision in June 2023.