President Samia Suluhu Hassan has urged the National Election Commission (NEC) to embrace information communication technology (ICT) for eligible voters to exercise their basic constitutional rights regardless of their localities. The Head of State gave the advice at the State House in Dar es Salaam on Saturday when she was receiving a 2020 General Election report.
She received the NEC's election dossier after administering oaths of three Ambassadors and the newly appointed Chief Court Administrator Prof. Elisante Ole Gabriel. Her Excellency President said the world was in the fourth industrial revolution heralded by ICT hence NEC shouldn't be lagging behind instead to use the available digital opportunities for voters to exercise their rights.
According to CNBC, the fourth industrial revolution refers to how technologies like artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles and the internet of things are merging with humans' physical lives.
She said in the last general election, NEC registered over 29,7 million voters of which women were 50,4 percent and men were only 49,6 percent. Coining elections and ICT, President Samia said most registered voters fail to turn up to vote due to many reasons including their day to day busineses and suggested that ICT should address the matter by enabling everyone to vote regardless of their localities.
"We should plan for that [ICT.... We will be able to let more people participate in the elections," she insisted as she added: "Some fail to vote because of many reasons but if NEC manages to deploy a good system, they can vote from their localities...
Meanwhile, she said it was time to review election laws since there are some "minor" technical issues that can lead to the disqualification of contestants.
"For example in the last election, when a person misspelled a letter of his/her name or their parties were disqualified," she said as she told political parties to be very careful in order to avoid the traps.