The Commission's failure to aggressively carry out its civic education role and failure to give adequate publicity to the voter registration process lies at the heart of the renewed criticism. Other fears hinge around the confusion which could result during panic late registration, and which they say could be exploited to stuff the register with ghost voters' names.
A number of opposition politicians told Sunday Monitor in exclusive interviews that it is not by coincidence that the EC appears reluctant to encourage Ugandans who are of voting age to register. The politicians say this apparent reluctance in the face of the National Resistance Movement's (NRM) ongoing, and controversial, registration of people mainly in the rural areas where the majority of the country's 31 million people live, has attracted their attention.
The NRM says it hopes to have 10 million Ugandans on its records by polling date. However, ordinary Ugandans like Mr Richard Mwebesa, a 21-year-old student at Kyambogo University who says he would like to vote in the 2011 polls, says he is still waiting for an announcement from the EC for registration.
"I have only heard that the NRM party is registering their voters," he says. The ruling NRM's ongoing parallel registration of party voters, extended for another two weeks on Friday by the party chairman, President Yoweri Museveni, has overshadowed the EC national exercise and it is said the rural folk have failed to differentiate between the two.
"It's a deliberate confusion engineered by the NRM because even their registrars have EC voters registers," says Wafula Oguttu, the spokesman of the leading opposition party, the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC).
While Mr Mwebesa could be one of the many people who do not know that the Electoral Commission exercise is supposed to be also ongoing, even those who are aware, say the fact that registration can, for now, only be done at the district headquarters is discouraging.
This could also affect those who have since moved to other districts and are living under the illusion that since their names were captured where they were previously domiciled then there is nothing to worry about.
Mr Oguttu says in Bugiri District, people have to trek close to 15 kilometres to reach the district headquarters to register.
"And even for a few who turn up, there are no cameras. The EC hasn't done enough and some people will end up not registering," Mr Oguttu warns.
Mr Micheal Mabikke, a Member of Parliament representing the city constituency of Makindye East, who is also a president of the opposition Social Democrats Party, says: "People are still waiting for an announcement. It's not begun already because there is no activity at parishes."
In the EC's November 2009 revised roadmap to 2011, voter registration is supposed to end slightly more than two months from today on May 15. That deadline could be missed by many who could potentially have to live the frustration that they will not be able to vote their preferred candidate in six months time.
"The response has been in small numbers. People come in 10s and 20s," EC Chairman Badru Kiggundu told Sunday Monitor when reached for comment.
According to the commission's website www.ec.or.ug , "registration of voters is optional and is done on a continuous, yet voluntary basis and is open to anyone who qualifies to vote."
But the presence of just one register at a district returning office has become an issue that most political critics have faulted the EC.
"The NRM registration is still confusing and the EC better comes up to advertise their exercise because LCIs are writing [the names of] everybody in the village for the NRM," says Chua County MP Okello-Okello (UPC).
Mr Okello expects large numbers of Ugandans to fail to register even when Eng. Kiggundu insisted there is no cause for alarm because the EC has set April 15 as the date on which they will launch countrywide updating of the voters roll.
This assurance, however, is not enough for Democratic Party president Norbert Mao. "The campaign by the EC to register [people] is lukewarm and many people will be left out."
Mr Mao's other concern was about voters who while they will attain voting age by voting day are still not yet 18 years and are thus not allowed to register. In response to this concern, Eng. Kiggundu said: "They are in the wrong age bracket. They have to wait until they turn the recommended age to vote."