Voter machine failure: EC chief Byabakama defends decision to go manual

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Electoral Commission chairperson Justice Simon Byabakama had given an elaborate explanation on why they opted to use a manual register after the Biometric Voter Verification Kits (BVVK), which were deployed to support the verification and identification of voters at all the said polling stations, failed in several places.

Speaking during the launch of the national tally centre at Lubowa EC headquarters for the 2026 Presidential elections, Byabakama said the commission learnt about the BVVK failure in several polling stations on Thursday January, 15, 2026, morning as the country voted for presidential and parliamentary candidates.

“Accordingly, the commission took the decision and guided all returning officers that where the BVVk failed to start, the polling process should commence immediately using the voters register in accordance with the electoral laws and guidelines so as not to disenfranchise any voter. This decision was informed that the failure of the BVVK in some polling stations was not in our view, sufficient grounds to subvert or stifle the power of the people in electing their leaders,” Byabakama stated.

He said the power of the people is sacred and supreme. 

“Whereas it was our great desire that the said kids work wherever they were deployed, the fact of their failure did not water down the unquestionable right of the people of Uganda to exercise their Constitutional power under Article 1 of the Constitution to chose leaders of their choice in a free and fair election, provided the exercise of doing so was conducted in line with the existing legal framework,” Byabakama said.

He added that it was in that vein that the commission guided and directed that the election take place, provided the voters are sufficiently identified using the registers that were provided in every polling station, which had arrived from the national voters register, whose data is uploaded and fed into the BVVK.

“In light of that fundamental record which is recognised both in the Constitution and the other articles of Parliament, it was deemed, therefore, crucial and vitally important that polling or voting proceeds so that we give the people of Uganda their deserved right to elect leaders of their choice, and so it was done, and that is why we are here.”

“Nevertheless, the commission's technical team were tasked to address the reported technical challenges wherever possible, and the stakeholders were being updated accordingly,” Byabakama said.

He revealed that in recognition of the fact that polling started a bit late, rather than the scheduled time of 7:00am, in some areas it started at 11:00am, the Commission, therefore, in exercise of its special powers under Section 9 of the Electoral Commissions Act, “decided to extend the polling hours which were earlier scheduled to end at 4:00pm to 5:00pm at all polling stations across the county. The polling stations were allowed to operate up to 5:00 pm or slightly beyond, depending on whether there were a number of voters still in the queue.”

He explained that this extension was granted to allow all the eligible voters who were unable to vote early or who had come to the polling station earlier and left due to the malfunction of the kits, to be able to come back and vote so that none of them is denied the opportunity to exercise his or her right.

“The Commission wishes to commend the people of Uganda that despite these challenges, they remained calm, tolerant, and patient until the time we said polling can proceed on the basis of the hard copy of the national voters register. I thank you, the people of Uganda, because we did not get any report of any agitated voters becoming either violent or anything of that matter,” Byabakama said.