Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) has come under fire from information and communications technology (ICT) professionals and opposition political parties over its system failure to instantly detect double or duplicate registration.
The reactions come after police in Lilongwe arrested Wiseman Enock for allegedly registering more than once in the ongoing voter registration exercise ahead of the September 16 2025 General Election.
MEC media and public relations director Sangwani Mwafulirwa said in a statement that Enock was arrested on Sunday at Msambeta Primary School after he registered for the second time.
He said Enock was able to register twice because the second registration was done on a different gadget.
Said Mwafulirwa: “The registration machine is designed to detect and prevent multiple registrations on the same gadget, whether it is online or offline.
“If Enoch had attempted to register a second time using the same machine, the system would have flagged him immediately, and the registration would have been rejected.”
He clarified that while it is possible for someone to register multiple times during the field registration because they are doing it on different devices, such instances are identified and resolved during the de-duplication process.
But ICT Association of Malawi president Clarence Gama said MEC should have used a system that is online throughout to detect such cases, especially in dealing with elections, which are emotive matters.
He said: “In ICT, there are two systems. One which is 100 percent 24/7 online, meaning when you punch data in computer A, the server recognises immediately that there is some data from that computer. That is a real time synchronisation.
“Then there is a second system where I have to capture data in 24 locations, but the system will not have 24/7 synchronisation. Therefore, you can decide to say once a day or even an hour where the system can be synchronised. So depending on the system that MEC is running, scenario one is difficult for one to register twice because it is very difficult for someone to register without notice.”
He said if MEC is doing the synchronisation at certain intervals, say, every evening or five hours, it is possible in between that period for a person to register twice.
Meanwhile, lawyer Charles Mhango, legal adviser to former president Peter Mutharika of the Democratic Progressive Party, stated on Facebook that it was difficult to trust the MEC system.
He said: “So, MEC wants us to believe that this election management system is safe. Really? When an information system creates duplicates like these, it implies that the system suffers from database normalisation issues.
The third phase of voter registration underway in Mzimba, Lilongwe Rural, Lilongwe City, Mangochi, Mangochi Municipality, Mwanza, Chikwawa and Nsanje opened on November 29 and closes on Wednesday, December 11 2024.
