Voter registration for the Bomachoge constituency by-election has been hit by a low turnout, an electoral official has said.

Mrs Jane Arita, the Gucha District registration officer, said she was concerned by the apparent voter apathy in the constituency.

“Since the voter registration exercise was launched on June 29, we have been experiencing a poor turnout and we are appealing to voters to register so as they to vote during the coming by-election,” she said.

Mrs Arita said out of the 130 polling centres only about 15,000 people have been registered by Interim Independent Electoral Commission.“This shows an average of about 200 voters per polling centre,” she said.

The exercise will be closed on July 28. At the same time, the IIEC will hire 800 polling clerks and 265 presiding officers to conduct the by-election.Mrs Arita asked those interested in the posts to apply to the commission secretary by July 15.

The district coordinator Mr James Moseti said the response was very poor but added that the commission was going round the constituency educating people on the need to register. “We are visiting each polling centre to tell the constituents the need to get IIEC voter cards,” Mr Moseti said.

“We expect a good turnout in the next remaining days.”The seat fell vacant after the High Court nullified the election of Assistant minister Joel Onyancha as the area MP.