The Electoral Commission (EC) has told the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee that it will not resume the registration of voters, to allow more people to qualify for voting in the 2021 general election.

Justice Simon Byabakama, Chairperson Electoral Commission was appearing before the Committee to respond to complaints raised by MPs on the closure of the voter registration in December 2019, one year ahead of voting in 2021 locking out those who would have turned 18years by then.

Last week, Members of Parliament -MPs questioned why the commission had chosen to close the registration of voters, a year prior to the general election closing out a number of people who would be 18yrs then from engaging in political activities as voters or candidates.

The MPs noted that the closing date is at least extended to two months before the nomination of candidates to give room for potential voters and candidates to participate.

The legislators claim that there is no legal ground to halting the registration of voters in December.

However, EC Chairperson Byabakama insisted that the reopening of voter registration won’t happen as there are elections for Special Interest Groups scheduled as early as April 2020  which requires a clean and ready Voter’s register.

Justice Byabakama said, “We have given exhaustive and careful consideration to that request. We haven’t been able to ascend to that request for reasons contained in our presentation.”

But Leonard Mulekwah, the Director of Operations at the Electoral Commission told the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee of Parliament on Tuesday aligned with the EC when he said that the closure of registration of voters and end of general update of the voter’s register had to be December 23, 2019.

This he said was to allow for update returns to be captured and processed for the production of the National Voters Register.

He explained that in order to achieve a clean up-to-date Voter Register by end of March 2020, the display of the registers and the general update of the registers should have been completed.

The Electoral Commission closed the registration of voters in December 2019 and on February 19, 2020, started displaying the Voter’s register to allow registered voters to verify their records. The commission intends to hold elections between January 10 and February 8, 2021.