- IEC says continuous voter education is the way to obviate the problems
SESUPO RANTSIMAKO
The independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has identified drunkenness, indecision and old age as the primary causes of the high incidence of spoilt votes recorded across constituencies in Botswana’s recent general elections.
In an interview with The Botswana Gazette, the spokesman of the IEC, Osupile Maroba, emphasised the need for continued voter education in order to stem some of the problems just experienced, especially that of some voters who drink before going to the polling stations.
“In some scenarios, a voter may have been drinking the night before and proceed to the polling station while still intoxicated,” said Maroba.
Overwhelmed
“It is important to note that in such a state, they may not be fit to mark their ballot papers correctly, leading to spoilt votes.”
Indecisiveness was cited as another issue among voters who may be overwhelmed by the number of candidates to choose from, resulting in such voters marking more than one candidate on the ballot papers.
“Such voters typically want to support more than one candidate, which causes them to mark more boxes in confusion or frustration,” said Maroba.
Tremulous hands
Some elderly voters have the specific difficulty of tremulous hands, especially their fingers, which may make them drag marks across multiple boxes.
“When they inadvertently touch two or even more boxes, it creates uncertainty about the intended choice and the vote is thus declared spoilt,” Maroba explained.
Even so, the IEC spokesman said the level of spoilt votes is a concern but is within the acceptable limits by international standards. “According to international benchmarks, anything less than 4 percent is deemed acceptable,” he stated.
“Since we began using ballot papers few elections ago, we have maintained a range of between 0.1 and 1.2 percent. The highest level recorded was 2 percent.”
Recorded spoilt votes
Several constituencies reported high instances of spoilt votes.
In GaMalete, there were 123 spoilt votes out of 23 844 registered voters. Jwaneng/Mabutsane recorded 259 spoilt votes against 19 452 valid. Gaborone North reported 33 spoilt 14 399 valid ballots from a pool of 17 556 voters. Shoshong constituency recorded 255 spoilt votes 16 478 registered voters. Nkange constituency had 194 spoilt votes from a total of 26 847 valid votes.