Got vote?

Earlier this week I registered to vote in Kenya for the first time, 10 years since I became eligible to vote.

First the good:

If you have the necessary documentation, that is a Kenyan Identification Card or a Kenyan Passport the process is relatively simple.

You find a registration point, show your documents, sign a form, mark the voters card with your thumb print and voila you can make you voice heard through the ballot.
Registration points vary in size and stature from government offices to simple roadside tables like the one I went to:

These roadside registration points are vital to the process as they take the registration to the people. Most of the people registering where we were simply walked over when they noticed the table. Although some people, such us ourselves, had actively gone out seeking the registration centre. The lady sitting down is the registration official and she had moved to this location, near a busy road, from where she had been originally located, in the grounds of a school, in a bid to register more people.

Next the bad:

The Electoral Commission of Kenya have opened voter registration for only one month. Registration closes on the 14th of September. If you were out of the country in that one month, too bad. If you were in hospital, too bad. If you working 12 hour shifts during the day during that month, too bad. This is why I have never been able to register to vote before. Every time registration was open I was abroad. There may be another registration window next year, there may not be. Which means that this may be the last chance you can register to vote before the general election expected in December 2007.

Contrary to popular belief you can only register to vote in the constituency where you register. I registered in Nairobi. I want to vote in Western Kenya. I would understand this policy if registration was continous, open for half the year or at least 3 months. But if you are only allowing people to register for one month you have to allow them to choose where they want to vote. For example most people can not afford or simply will not be given time off work to travel upcountry to register to vote.
In some instances it can take up to three days to reach ancestral homes from Nairobi (mainly in parts of the country which have been neglected since independence such as North Eastern Kenya). If we want people to take part in a vital civic process we have to make sure that they can vote where they want to vote. There is no point various political and civic leaders making a lot of noise about bringing North Eastern Kenya and other remote communities into the national fold if it punishes them like this.

This current registration process favours communities whose ancestral homes are close to Nairobi and other big towns. If you can travel, register and be back in Nairobi in a couple of hours or half a day you have an advantage over those communities where it takes at least one day travel in each direction, not to mention the three days in one direction I mentioned earlier.

Lastly the ugly:

Many people who want to vote can not register because they have not been issued with National ID cards or passports. Despite applying with all the necessary paperwork and investing a lot of time and effort. Some people have been waiting for ID cards for five years. This can be interpreted as a deliberate attempt to leave some people disenfranchised.

Back to the good (well goodish)
As I mentioned above part of the process for registering requires you to leave a thumb print on your voter’s card. This means that for the next few days you walk around with a purple thumb comme ca:

This allows you to hold your head up high in civic superiority as you are now a voter. (Yes my shirt is pink, iko swali??)