Summary
The voter registration system should be carefully tailored to ensure that cultural factors affecting women (name changes with marriage) do not result in disenfranchisement.
Obligations
Election Parts
Issues
Quotes
- The Committee recommends that States parties: (e) Ensure the registration and voting of women voters, such as by allowing postal balloting, where appropriate, and removing all barriers, including by ensuring an adequate and accessible number of polling stations.
- Since women’s names and places of residence often change as a result of marriage, it is important that a system be in place to capture these changes in order not to disenfranchise newly married women. Likewise, since residency records are commonly recorded under the name of the male head of household, it is especially important in countries with passive registration systems that women dependents be included in voter registers drawn from lists of members of households Particularly in the case of affirmative registration systems, a significant issue may relate to the convenience of access to registration offices. Hours of operation, travel time, and distance to appropriate offices can be of particular concern to women, particularly for women caring for small children.
- EMBs can consider different initiatives to target women specifically, such as through women-only registration centres or queues, mobile registration and providing information on the requirement to enrol and gender training for registration staff.