2026 ELECTIONS: Electoral Commission Boss Speaks Out on Plan to Use UBOS Tablets That Failed During Census

Electoral Commission (EC) Chairperson Justice Simon Byabakama Mugenyi has spoken out on using UBOS tablets that failed during the 2024 census.

While there had been a proposal for the tablets to be used during voting in the 2026 elections, some politicians have raised issues on the reliability of the UBOS tables that malfunctioned during the census – whose results were also as confusing as they were questionable.

The issue of using UBOS tablets that failed during census, during the 2026 elections, came up as MPs on the Legal Affairs Committee met with officials from Electoral Commission (EC) for the consideration of its 2025-26 ministerial policy statement.

MPs on the committee vehemently voiced their disdain of any plans to use the same tablets that failed to do their work during the 2024 national census conducted by Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), in next year’s general elections.

The legislators were worried that if these tablets are used next year, they are likely to affect the credibility of the results as happened with UBOS census results.

“If you are proceeding on the basis of the biometric electoral voting system, you can’t start talking of UBOS tablets. Let us see where these people used these tablets. Did we have, to use your words, a free and fair census with the results. which we are facing?” asked Abdu Katuntu, the Bugweri County MP.

“Because as we talk now, we don’t have those results. Do you want to be subject to the same system? That after election, people will not know whether those are the results or not? I think you need to think seriously about this. Today as we talk now, how many months past the census but we don’t have details.

“And these are the sort of tablets you people want now to subject the people of Uganda to, in an election. I think you are causing controversies even before the elections. Sometimes, Ugandans, we are jokers, I think. And we joke with our own national issues and our own country. And then you’ll be bringing these tablets, yet you knew they would not provide what we need.”

Elijah Okupa, the Kasilo County MP, even complained about UBOS failing to give him details of the results for the 2024 census. Okupa said he had written to UBOS in February this year requesting the copy of statistics for each district but the bureau was yet to deliver the same even after promising to do so last month.

Okupa also tasked Byabakama to explain what exactly was wrong with the batteries for the UBOS tablets and the reconciliation of figures that UBOS has and what the EC has.

“Have you tried to reconcile your figures with UBOS? Because UBOS has had confusing figures. I wrote in February 2025 to the Executive Director of UBOS, that ‘please, can you give me the population per district, per constituency in the whole country.’ They responded to me that we have not yet completed. We shall give you the complete census in March. March has ended while in April I have not received. So, I don’t know which figures they released,” noted Okupa.

“What are you trying to do to address this issue of BC batteries? I don’t want to call them fake batteries. With the low battery life which UBOS had procured now that we are going for election. For them they can afford to do that but not for the Electoral Commission, what are you planning to do to address that issue? Because it can cause a big, big, big challenge on election day if we are able to use that equipment.”

In response, Byabakama said that the EC had realized that the 36,000 biometric machines or tablets used by UBOS to collect data during the 2024 census exercise had issues with low battery life and that they would not surely serve the purpose in 2026.

“At the time of procurement, they were said to have a battery life span of 18hours but if in March 2025, the battery is running low in seven hours when it isn’t doing anything, what if on polling day, you have 1000 voters at a polling station where the voter numbers are high and that kit is working nonstop, we don’t even know whether in January 2026, the degradation level would have gone lower, and lower. So, we discovered that these tablets will not serve the purpose,” Byabakama told the MPs.

“We decided to test the functionality and reliability of these kits, the first thing we noted, that when you turn on the kit, and leave it unutilised, just on standby, the battery runs low in seven hours, when it isn’t doing anything. So therefore, the delay can’t be attributed to the Commission, the thinking was that these UBOS kits would serve the purpose, but now we find that they cannot.

“Then they also have other technical issues, they were procured by UBOS who didn’t require the citizens to be identified biometrically with fingerprints, now they have to be configured, I am told there is a process of configuration, I am an illiterate when it comes to Information Technology.”

UBOS AND ITS CENSUS RESULTS

1. ‘Best Statistician Spends Shs347bn on Census, Asks Ugandans 180 Questions – then Makes Them Guess Figures!’
2. BELOW EXPECTATION! Museveni ‘Shocked’ by Population Census 2024 Numbers
3. CENSUS FIGURES: UBOS Apologizes Over Bagisu, Acholi Numbers
4. AGAIN! Dr Mukiza’s UBOS Now Has to Explain How Number of Ugandans with Disabilities Reduced by 3.4 Million People
5. Most Popular Religions in Uganda Named. Balokole Increase but Catholics, Anglicans…
6. Uganda’s Biggest Tribes Revealed – See How Many People Each Tribe Has

For comments on this report, story tips or sponsored content, send us a Whatsapp message on +256 705 690 819 or E-mail us on pearltimesug@gmail.com). 

Please Follow our Whatsapp Channel for More Stories HERE