Lack of IDs hampers registration of inmate voters

As the voter registration exercise for prisoners enters its second day Saturday it is now emerging that hundreds will miss out as they do not have the requisite identity cards.

Out of the four prison facilities within the Kitale area, only 29 voters were registered.

At the Kitale women's prison, registration officials failed to register even a single inmate as none had a national identity card.

The prisoners are now calling on the government to allocate more time to the exercise to enable them to acquire new identity cards, or to have the documents delivered to them by their relatives.

This new development has seen the excitement that greeted the ruling of the interim constitution dispute resolution court, giving prisoners the green light to participate in the August 4 referendum slowly waning.

At prison facilities in Meru, the number of voters registered was slightly higher, and according to regional co-coordinator Gikundi Ntuara, the eastern region is expected to register the largest number of voters due to the large inmate population.

At the Kiambu GK prison, 200 inmates received their voters card in the exercise that kicked off on Friday.

Inmates in Kisumu prisons also managed to acquire their voters cards. The lack of identity cards was a challenge there as well, with the inmates calling on authorities to facilitate their acquistion of the vital documents.

The inmate population in the country currently stands at 40,000, but it is likely that many will not be able to vote during the August fourth constitutional referendum due to a failure to meet the minimum registration requirements.