Kampala — Electoral Commission (EC) chairman Badru Kiggundu has said of the 19,892 elections conducted since 2006, only 73 had been challenged and 23 cases lost.

"That is less than 1%. In all of these petitions, there is not one court ruling saying the Electoral Commission is incompetent," he said.

Meeting New Vision editors on Wednesday, Kiggundu acknowledged that some security people overstepped their responsibility but said it was not the EC policy.

He said the law allows for the security forces to step in when the Police is inadequate to provide security.

On the court's observation that the names of 15,500 people were deleted from the voters' register, operations director Lenard Mulekwa said these were mainly people who had moved residence or had died.

"The voters also have a duty to participate in the updating of the register and to ensure that their names are there, as well as to ascertain where they are expected to vote."

The EC listed a series of measures it planned to take to address the shortcomings, such as the establishment of district complaints desks, and a national information desk with a toll free line.

Voter education, which was incorporated in the school curriculum, has started in primary schools and will be extended to secondary schools, Kiggundu announced.

On the security situation, he said a special unit in the Police was being trained to handle electoral matters.

The EC has also blacklisted election officials who misbehaved in the past and acquired a computer programme that rejects inflated votes above the number of registered voters per polling station.

Other measures are the display of voters' lists recommended for deletion, proper packing of ballot papers indicating quantity and serial numbers, the use of transparent ballot boxes, tamper-free envelopes, and computerised tallying of results.

Of the sh88b required to organise the 2011 elections, only sh33b has been pledged, Kiggundu noted.