KAMPALA, Uganda — The Electoral Commission is undertaking a massive recruitment effort for the 2026 general election, seeking more than 250,000 temporary staff to conduct the national exercise.
The commission is advertising for 253,695 short-term positions, including 50,739 presiding officers and 202,956 polling assistants. These figures are in addition to the 888 district tally clerks and thousands of biometric voter verification kit operators previously advertised.
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The application deadline for presiding officers and polling assistants is Friday, Dec. 19.
According to a commission statement, successful presiding officers will be deployed one per polling station and must possess a Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education or its equivalent. Polling assistants, four per station, are required to have a Uganda Certificate of Education or equivalent.
Both positions require applicants to be over age 18, registered voters, of good moral character and preferably residents of the area where the polling station is located.
Presiding officers will receive an allowance of 100,000 shillings per polling day, while polling assistants will earn 75,000 shillings per day. With elections scheduled across multiple days — Jan. 15 for president and parliament, and three subsequent days for local council elections — a presiding officer stands to earn a minimum of 300,000 shillings for the primary rounds.
Biometric Kits to Curb Malpractice
The recruitment drive comes as the commission introduces new technology intended to safeguard the integrity of the polls.
The EC has assured the public that the new biometric voter verification kits will eliminate ballot stuffing and other electoral forgeries. Hadija Namanda, a data management focal person for southwestern Uganda, explained that each ballot paper will feature a bar code, which is scanned and linked to a verified voter.
“All the ballot papers in the box will have to be scanned again after voting, just before the start of the counting,” Namanda said during a training session for district IT officers and subcounty supervisors in Kampala. “Only ballots verified by the machine with bar codes will be counted.”
The EC chairperson, Justice Simon Byabakama, recently received the first batch of 60,000 biometric voter verification machines at Entebbe Airport.
Jennifer Kyobutungi, the election officer in charge of the Kampala region, confirmed that two machines, one for contingency, will be allocated to each polling station. She noted that voters whose fingerprints are eroded will be verified using facial recognition technology.
During demonstration, technical staff illustrated that if a voter appears at the wrong polling station, the machine will display an error message and indicate the correct location. Additionally, any attempt by a person to vote more than once will result in the machine rejecting the process.
The commission cautioned that a shortlist of candidates for the newly advertised roles will be displayed at respective district election offices.
Responsibilities
The polling assistants’ main responsibility is to:
• Assist the presiding officer in the management of elections at the polling station, marking/dipping the finger of a voter after casting the ballot;
• Assisting the presiding officer to fill election forms at the start, during and closure of polling
• Assist the residing officer in ensuring peace and security at the polling station,
• Assist the presiding officer in setting up the polling station and any other duties as assigned.
Presiding officers will be responsible for:
• Overall management of the polling process at the polling station,
• Verification of voters using the biometric kit or hard copy of the voters’ register
• Issuing ballot papers to the voters.
• Receiving and providing accountability of election materials;
• Ensuring safe custody of election materials,
• Ensuring proper filling of election forms,
• Submitting election forms to the returning officer,
• Keeping records of the proceedings at the polling station
• Setting up the furniture to facilitate the polling process.
