Fewer Than 600,000 Haitians Registered to Vote Nearly Two Months Into Registration Drive

Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) reported that 506,953 people had registered to vote as of September 6, 2026 — 257,447 men and 248,769 women — nearly seven weeks into a registration process that began July 20, 2026 and is due to close October 13, 2026. CEP president Jacques Desrosiers's council is targeting 3-4 million registered voters (roughly 35-50% of Haiti's voting-age population) ahead of the December 13, 2026 first-round presidential, legislative and constitutional-referendum vote, meaning the current tally represents only about 12.6% of that target and roughly 7% of the estimated 7.7 million Haitians aged 18 and older. The CEP reported 2,761 active registration operators working across 1,271 operational registration centers (of 1,418 planned), with a single-day peak of 24,775 applications on August 17. Analysts, including former Pétion-Ville deputy Jerry Tardieu, pointed to gang control of large swaths of the West department and general insecurity as the principal drag on turnout. Separately, only 21 of 105 approved political organizations had met the requirement of 30,000 verified endorsement signatures by early September, ahead of an October 14 deadline for parties to finalize their candidate lists.