The Uganda Electoral Commission has decried the continuous low voter turnout in the country’s elections.
This was during a stakeholders’ meeting hosted by Kick Corruption out of Uganda.
Currently the EC chairman Justice Simon Byabakama is in Kabale for a dialogue ahead of the 2026 general elections.
Byabakama is engaging leaders in the Kigezi sub-region and among the issues that were discussed was strengthening citizen’s engagement in elections and the role of the youth in universities and tertiary institutions in the electoral processes.
He noted that the issue of low voter turn out has continued worrying EC.
He highlighted that in the 2021 last general election, they had registered over 18.5 registered voters but to their surprise on polling day of the presidential candidates, the final total tally did not exceed 11million voters adding that during the planning process they plan for all the registered voters.
Byabakama also noted that continuous low voter turn out leads to wastage of government resources including ballot papers .
“In 2021 general elections we wondered why other voters didn’t turn up for the voting process. Whenever people don’t come up for voting, we waste a lot of funds since we put a lot of money to print the ballot papers,” Byabakama noted.
He appealed to local leaders to join hands with Electoral Commission in encouraging the voters to know the value of voting.
“As Kigezi Sub-region, I kindly request that you join us in educating people on the importance of voting. ”
Mary Bikorere Wasike a lecturer of governance at Kabale university said that once there is low voter turn up it means that people are not interested in politics.
She added that over the past years, there has been election violence, vote rigging, commercialization of elections, voter intimidation and that all these combined greatly contribute to low voter turn up.
She noted that there are some who think that its not important for one to vote since who those they vote are not declared.
“Some of the voters do not see the purpose of vomiting since the voting process comes with a lot of intimidation, vote rigging and commercialization of politics. If we always have a free and fair elections, then people would pick interest in voting. “
