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Up until December approximately 65% of the total number of voters on the list prior to the re-registration exercise, that is over 133 thousand people, made it to the final list of eligible persons to receive their voter ID Cards. But none, so far, have been issued, although voters were told their cards would be ready by December. We understand, cards have begun to print. So, what's the hold up on delivery? To answer that question, we spoke to Chief Elections Officer Josephine Tamai:

Josephine Tamai - Chief Elections Officer
"When it comes to the ID card, person will recall that when they went into make the applications they were verbally informed that the ID cards will be ready sometime around the month of December. Unfortunately at this point we are still procuring some of the supplies for us to get the ID cards. We want to ensure the ID cards that we issue are ID cards that are enhanced, they are no longer the laminated ID cards. They have security features in them. We want to make sure that different organizations actually accept these ID cards as valid identification cards, apart from being a voters' ID card. So we are still waiting to see some of the supplies be able to reach us. We are hoping that it will be in the next couple of weeks and that's the reason we decided to send out a press release."

"One of the other things that we want to ensure before we put out an announcement to say to pick up ID cards, is for us that we have ID cards for most persons, if not all. Because once we put out an announcement to say we have the ID cards ready, we want for everybody to be able to go in and pick up those ID cards, because if we put out the announcement only for you to go in to be told well yours isn't ready - people will get frustrated. So we are trying to avoid persons having to avoid to make unnecessary trips to the offices to ask for ID cards when the ID cards are not ready."

"We also plan to have deliveries at the different villages for persons. Again, we will have a venue. We will make an announcement to inform the villagers that we will be in that village on whatever date and for them to come to that specific location to pick up their ID cards."

Now although, registration is conducted continuously throughout the year during work days, for your ID card to be ready in time for the referendum the official cut off period is the 10th of March.

And while on the subject of the ICJ referendum, we took the opportunity to speak to the Chief Elections Officer about the logistical differences in hosting a referendum, as compared to a regular elections. Here is what she told us:

Josephine Tamai - Chief Elections Officer
"As a department what it is that we want to do: we want to have more polling stations open in order for us to reach out to the electors, because in a normal election you would know that in terms of mobilization you have the political parties involved that they will mobilize the voters to get to the polling stations. But because in this case it's a national issue. At this point I cannot say if political parties will be willing to assist in terms of mobilization. People might view it as a positive. Others maybe as a negative. But our role as a department is for us to reach as close as possible to the elector to give them an opportunity to come out and cast their votes."

Only an estimated 8% of applicants have been disallowed from the process of registration according to Tamai. For those other 133 thousand eligible persons, the elections and boundaries department reminds them that they must pick up their cards in person. Pickup and delivery is expected to begin this month.