‎Masaka Woman MP Election Vote Recount Unearths Gross Mismatch in Numbers

‎‎On Friday evening, the Masaka Chief Magistrate Abert Asiimwe commenced the implement an order of vote recount, which arouse from an application filed by Justine Nameere, the National Resistance Movement-NRM candidate, who contested the victory of her National Unity Platform-NUP competitor Rose Nalubowa.

Masaka vote recounting process

The ongoing vote recount in the disputed Masaka City Woman member of parliament elections has unearthed gross mismatch between numbers of ballot papers delivered and ballots casted for candidates.

‎‎On Friday evening, the Masaka Chief Magistrate Abert Asiimwe commenced the implement an order of vote recount, which arouse from an application filed by Justine Nameere, the National Resistance Movement-NRM candidate, who contested the victory of her National Unity Platform-NUP competitor Rose Nalubowa.

The Magistrate directed that all the ballots from the 314 polling stations in Masaka be recount to ascertain the number of votes scored by each candidate, to resolve the dispute. However, the recount is earthing glaring variations in numbers of ballot papers counted at the various polling stations and numbers captured on both the declaration of results forms and the Electoral Commission’s tally sheet.

‎Although Nameere had indicated in her application that the Returning Officer variously reduced her scores or completely ommitted them, the recount suggests that at some stations she was allocated more votes on the tally sheet than what is actually recovered from the ballot boxes.

‎For instance, at Kimwanyi P.7 polling station, in Kiteredde Ward, Kimanya-Kabonera division, the tally sheet suggests that out of the 287 registered voters, 97 voted for Nameere and Nalubowa scored 62 votes. The other candidates Juliet Kakande Nakabuye of the Democratic Front-DF got 13 votes and Sauyah Nanyonga independent also scored 13 votes.

‎However upon opening the box, court discovered there were 49 ballots, all ticked in favour of Nameere. In the same ballot box, court recovered 4 and half ballot books used in voting for directly elected member of parliament for Kimanya-Kabonera division, but their results were not tallied.

‎Upon court noticing the inconsistency, the Chief Magistrate resolved to disregard results from the affected polling station.

Similarly, At Binyonyi A (NAMBU-Z) polling station in Nyendo Ward, in Nyendo-Mukungwe, the tally sheet allocates 339 votes to Nameere but in opening the box 41 votes were recovered

‎NUP’s Nalubowa has 30 votes at the tally sheet while 31 votes were recovered from the ballot box upon opening.

‎At Market triangle (open space) polling station; the tally sheet indicates that Nameere scored 200 votes out of the 500 registered voters, but the ballot box contained 21 votes ticked in her favour. The tally sheet gave 50 votes to Nalubowa while the box had 58 votes, ticked in her favour. Juliet Kakande Nakabuye of the Democratic Front-DF was allocated 20 votes on the tally sheet while in the ballot box, there was actually 09 votes, Sauyah Nanyonga an independent candidate was given 10 votes on the tally sheet while the box contained 06 votes. On the other mismatch is also reflected on polling stations where Nameere’s votes were indeed reduced as claimed.

‎At Block B A polling station in Nyendo ward, Nyendo-Mukungwe Division, Nameere had been given 39 votes on the tally sheet while the ballot box contains 188 votes, Rose Nalubowa has 123 votes on the tally sheet while the box contained 50 votes, Juliet Kakande Nakabuye -DF and Sauyah Nanyonga independent have 19 and 14 votes respectively, the same was recovered from the ballot boxes.

‎‎At Kitenga Primary School polling station, in Nyendo-Mukungwe division, NUP’s Nalubowa has 118 votes on the tally sheet while the opened ballot box contained 119 votes, Nameere has 49 votes any the actual figure was recovered from the box. Sauyah Nanyonga, independent has 17 votes on the tally sheet while the box contains 19 votes. Juliet Kakande Nakabuye in both instances has 14 votes.

‎At Sserinya Primary School (kabagabo) polling station, Bulando ward in Nyendo-Mukungwe Division, dispite all the candidates having results on the tally sheet, the ballot box was found empty

‎In the last 24 hours, the court had examined 104 ballot boxes, out of a total of 313, representing 33.2% of the completed work. In total, the court will reexamine a total of 59,499 ballots papers that were cast in Masaka City Woman MP election conducted in the area on January 15th.

Meanwhile, the recount was conducted in the absence of the declared winner Rose Nalubowa, who walked away on Friday, in protest of Chief Magistrate’s to proceed with the exercise despite finding one of the ballot boxes with already broken seal inside the store ‎