The Voter Verification Devices (VVD) at some of the polling stations for the Swakopmund by-elections would not scan duplicate voter cards on Friday, causing slight delays.

The delays were caused by voters having to wait for manual verification in these cases, according to the presiding officers at the affected stations.

Frans Shilongo, the presiding officer at Matutura Open Space B, said the VVD mainly struggled to scan the newly issued duplicate voter cards.

“This was a bit challenging because when the voter’s information could not be detected on the VVD, we had to manually enter their information into the system to verify,” Shilongo noted.

Presiding officer at the Mahetago Polling Station, Peter Auseb said they experienced the same issue.

“The duplicate cards do not appear on the voters roll so in this case, we called the database just to confirm whether or not they are eligible voters and once they have been confirmed, the voter completes the Elect 27 form before they can proceed to vote,” Auseb told Nampa.

He noted that despite this challenge, voters were not deterred from voting and they were patient throughout the process.

Paulus Hangula, presiding officer at the DRC New Block Extension 23 (Wag daar) Polling Station said the generator at the station stopped working for over 45 minutes.

“We unfortunately had to put the voting process on hold due to this, which caused a bit of a delay, but once that was sorted out, we got back on track.”

The presiding officers at the polling stations visited by Nampa noted that the voter turnout started off slow in the morning but picked up around midday.

There were 29 polling stations, including three mobile stations.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency