By Fatou Sillah
The United Democratic Party on Monday called on The Gambia’s Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) to release the complete dataset from the 2026 Supplementary Voter Registration exercise, saying access to the raw figures is necessary to account for an apparent discrepancy involving roughly 14,000 voters before the December general elections.
Speaking at a party press conference, Lamin Manneh, the UDP’s Deputy Administrative Secretary for External Affairs, said the request was intended to promote transparency and reinforce public confidence in the electoral process, not to accuse the commission of misconduct.
According to Manneh, the IEC informed political parties that 212,095 people registered during the supplementary voter registration exercise. The commission also identified 24,334 instances of multiple registrations involving 14,334 individuals, which it said would be removed from the final register.
The UDP said its questions arose after comparing the commission’s public announcements with voter registration data distributed to political parties.
Manneh said the dataset initially provided to parties on a flash drive contained slightly more than 179,000 registered voters—about 32,000 fewer than the total the IEC had announced publicly.
After political parties raised concerns, he said, the commission released an additional dataset containing 3,713 voters that had been omitted from the original files, bringing the total available to the UDP to roughly 183,000 records.
Even after that revision, Manneh said, the party was unable to reconcile the remaining difference.
“The question to the IEC was, can you explain to us where these 14,000 have gone? What is the justification?” he said.
Manneh stressed that the UDP was not alleging fraud or manipulation. Rather, he said, the party wanted access to the complete registration database so it could independently verify the figures using its own data analysis systems.
He said the UDP has developed an information technology platform capable of reviewing electoral data and was requesting the commission provide the full registration records before any deductions for duplicate registrations were applied.
Specifically, the party is seeking access to the complete dataset of 212,095 registered voters, the list of the 14,334 individuals identified through multiple registrations, and the additional 3,713 voter records that were supplied after the initial publication.
The party also raised concerns about the timeline for filing objections to names appearing on the provisional voter register. Manneh said the period for lodging petitions should begin the day after the register is officially published.
He described the party’s engagement with the IEC as an effort to strengthen, rather than undermine, confidence in the electoral process ahead of the December 5, 2026, elections.
“We are not suspecting them of fraud,” Manneh said. “We just want to be able to verify for ourselves so that when we leave, we can tell everybody that the IEC has done the job they’re supposed to do and move on from there.”
He urged UDP supporters and other stakeholders to approach the issue responsibly, saying the party’s objective was to ensure public confidence in the integrity of the voter registration process rather than to cast doubt on the commission’s work.
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