The National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) held the 6th general election on June 21, 2021, in most constituencies and for most seats, and in other constituencies where no elections were held due to various reasons, voting took place on September 30, 2021.
In the process, voter registration took place between September 1 and 10, 2021 in areas where voter registration had not yet been completed.
Accordingly, 6,562,534 voters (excluding the referendum) registered to vote in the September 30, 2021 polling. In the process, five messages were prepared in 11 languages and were disseminated through six media outlets for voters to register and vote. Voter education street campaigns have also been conducted in the constituencies. In addition, a total of 123 hours of free television and radio broadcasts were provided for political parties in nine media outlets.
There were three rounds of distribution of materials for training, voter registration, and voting, and 9,874 kits (blue boxes) were distributed. The ballot papers were printed abroad and reached the polling stations without any significant logistic problems. A total of 21,198 poll workers were deployed to conduct the voter registration and voting process, and they received two rounds of training. Polling was held for 47 House of Representatives and 106 Regional Councils constituencies in a total of 5,935 polling stations (excluding the referendum polling stations). A total of 2,569 civil society observers from 11 organizations observed the process.
Following the announcement of the results in each constituency, the Board's results verification center has also been working to verify the results in accordance with the law.
In this process, parties, as well as candidates, have been requested to submit their complaints to the Board if they have any complaints about the election process. As a result, six parties and 24 independent candidates filed complaints. The legal department of the Board reviewed the complaints and compiled the documents and witness testimonies to provide input for the final decision.
In order to strengthen the verification process and to ensure the quality of the counting and tallying of results, the Board decided to re-count 10 percent of the votes cast in 33 constituencies (three for the House of Representatives and the 30 Regional Councils) in the Somali region.
In addition, the following constituencies have not been included in these results, as investigations into the complaints have not yet been completed. For Regional Council and House of Representatives in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region
- Bulle
- Meskan and Mareko 2
- Lomo 01
Somali Region Regional Council
- Jijiga City
- Muyu Muluke
For the polling held on September 30, 2021, of the 6,562,534 registered voters, 5,914,670 cast their ballots. This shows that voter turnout on the day was 85 percent of the day.
As the National Election Board of Ethiopia is authorized to verify election results based on Article 07 Sub-Article 18 of Proclamation 1133/2019, the Board states that the results attached here are officially confirmed. The Board thanks citizens involved in the process namely the cooperating federal and regional state governments, the security forces, institutions, as well as poll workers involved in the election at various levels for the success of the election.
National Election Board of Ethiopia
October 12, 2021