* Out of the figure, 4,114,720 are female and 3,088,670 are male — representing 70.8% and 60% of the projected number of eligible votes respectively
* MEC will, in due course, publish disaggregated statistics covering gender, the youth and people with disabilities and other important attributes including first time voters
By Duncan Mlanjira
Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) chairperson, Annabel Mtalimanja has reported that they have finalised the voters’ register for the September 16 General Election — recording a total of 7,203,390, which represents 65.7% of the total number of eligible voters projected at 10,957,490 by the National Statistical Office.
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She reported this at a meeting MEC had with all the 24 registered political parties and representatives of aspiring independent candidates held yesterday in Lilongwe, saying out of the figure, 4,114,720 are female and 3,088,670 are male — representing 70.8% and 60% of the projected number of eligible votes respectively.
She added that MEC “will, in due course, publish disaggregated statistics covering gender, the youth and people with disabilities and other important attributes including first time voters”.
She indicated that the additional statistics will be published on MEC website tomorrow, July 14 and based on statistics per registration centre, MEC “will determine the number of polling stations to be established at those registration centres”.
“The number of polling stations will be determined by the number of voters per polling stations which is 600,” she said. “The list of polling stations will then be published in the Gazette and newspapers and shared with electoral stakeholders.”
Procurements of electoral materials
On further state of preparedness in relation to sensitive materials such as ballot papers and results forms, Mtalimanja reported that MEC has completed all preparatory contractual requirements and will soon be completing the final scheduling of production, printing and shipment of the materials.
“The production and printing of ballot papers and results forms will be commissioned once the list of candidates nominated for election in the three elections is settled and published by the Commission — expected to be made by August 8.”
She added that all procurements for both sensitive and non-sensitive materials of ballot boxes, ballot booths, and all other materials that are a requirement for the functioning of polling centres and results tallying centres have been procured.
Inspection of voters’ register and verification
She reiterated that MEC successfully conducted the registration of voters, transfer of voters and the inspection and verification of the voters’ register and that in pursuance of sections 20 and 21 of the Presidential, Parliamentary and Local Government Elections Act, 2023, MEC “duly made the voters’ register available for inspection by all electoral stakeholder and election observers, at all registration centres where registration of voters took place, and at its regional offices from May 13-31”.
“Additionally, verification was also made possible through mobile phones by dialling a code which was specially created for this purpose. Most importantly, political parties will recall that on 12th May 2025 a copy of the voters’ register was shared with all the registered political parties, as at that time.”
She emphasised that MEC “did not receive any complaint or petition highlighting anomalies or errors with the voters’ register from political parties, election observers or from other stakeholders”.
Errors in photographs
The only anomalies with the voters’ register are those that MEC already disclosed during a meeting with political parties on May 12 at Sunbird Capital Hotel in Lilongwe where it was disclosed that following its internal quality assurance processes it was discovered that some records in the voters’ register had errors in the photographs.
MEC thus identified issues affecting voter images in some of the records in the voters’ register — that included; unclear photographs of voters; photographs in which the face of the voter is not visible; and photographs of national registration slip in place of the voter’s face.
A list of the affected voters and their corresponding registration centres was compiled initially containing 305 but now the correct number of the affected records is 304 “as during implementation of the measures to rectify this issue, it was discovered that that one record was duplicated once”.
“It will further be recalled that this list was made available to political parties and that the Commission made an express undertaking to rectify these anomalies,” she said, emphasising that MEC “has rectified these anomalies and all the records described are now in order.”
She added that MEC “utilised the photos associated with the proof of national registration with NRB which were used by the affected voters during the registration process” — the records now bear the same photos of the voters as the ones that are in the National Registration Information System.
No authority to vote elsewhere
She stressed that “all voters will be expected to vote where they registered to vote or where they transferred to during the transfer window [and that MEC] will not issue any authorisation to any category of voters to vote where they did not register to vote”.
“This follows section 74 of the Presidential, Parliamentary and Local Government Elections Act, which makes it a requirement that a voter should vote where they registered.
“Political Parties should take notice of this and be informed when appointing party representative, an expectation should not be created that party representatives or election observers will be permitted to vote where they will be posted by virtue of their capacity as party representatives or observers.”
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