Voter mobilization during the enhanced mass voter registration exercise

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) had launched the Enhanced Continuous Voter Registration exercise, a month-long activity that aimed at registering new voters, on Oct 4 with the goal of registering six million new voters by Nov 2nd. Until 31st August 2021, the commission had registered only 180,938 new voters. Therefore, it was deemed crucial to conduct enhanced mass voter registration in order to attain the target of registering a total of six million new voters.

A week after the exercise kicked off, voter registration apathy was witnessed all over the 47 counties and Kilifi County was one of the counties recording very low turnouts. It was against this backdrop that we (Haki Yetu Organization) partnered with the IEBC Kilifi County office in order to encourage new voters and especially the youth of Kilifi County to come out and register. The collaboration with IEBC included a digital campaign, radio talk shows and interactive face to face activation. In the digital campaign we had soft posters that encouraged people to get registered with our rally call #HusikaUsikike. We told them that if they want change and development it all starts from registering as voters and electing their preferred leaders.

Youth in Mombasa sensitizing residents on the need to register as voters.

Part of our campaign was a radio talk show at Lulu Station in partnership with IEBC. During this show, IEBC registration officer Mr. Sudi Masha was able to share more insights on the ongoing exercise and Warda Zighe, representing Haki Yetu Org., once again emphasised why it is important for Kenyans to register and vote.

We also conducted Uchaguzi tents in areas that were recording low voter registration as shared by the election manager Kilifi County Mr. Abdulwahid Hussein. Malindi constituency was recording low turnout of 2,168 new voters as of 19/10/2021, this is 16 days after the exercise had rolled out. We responded by putting up two Uchaguzi tents and by 21/10/2021 total registration had increased to 2,657.

Additionally, we had prepared and handed out materials like brochures on frequently asked question on the registration exercise, written in Swahili. These were distributed at our Uchaguzi tents and shared with other organizations. We also printed t-shirts with the slogan “Kura yako , sauti yako” to encourage people to register as voters.

The interventions we undertook to encourage Kilifi residents to register as voters ended up being impactful. This became evident once the weekly registration numbers were shared by IEBC. After a slow start regarding the total number of registrations, Kilifi County ended up getting into the top 10 counties recording new voters.

  Warda Zighe, Haki Yetu staff with Registration Officer Mr Masha Sudi at Lulu station.
Warda Zighe, Haki Yetu staff with Registration Officer Mr Masha Sudi at Lulu station.

1 Comment

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