BY INDY MAEALSIA
Solomon Islands Electoral Commission’s (SIEC) has clarified that Pre-poll voters will only cast their ballots for the national government due to capacity limitation and the challenge to conduct a joint election for the first time.
Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Jasper Anisi explained the commission’s stance in the Sunday talk back show hosted at SIBC.
Since significant time and capacity has been put into including the pre-poll with the April 17th election, the commission is looking forward to successfully execute the joint election.
“This our first time to run a joint election so we want to do it perfectly and accurately and then we will slowly look at how we can best manage pre-poll” Anisi said.
He described pre-poll as basically out-of-constituency voting and highlighted the commission concern with the integrity and security of ballot papers.
“Out-of-constituency voting means movements of ballot paper here and there. At the same time, though we want everyone to participate in the election, we must also be worried about the integrity and security of the election or else they’ll be tampered with, so we must plan properly for this kind” Anisi said.
Under the Electoral Act; subdivision 2, Pre-poll voting is reserved for eligible voters including police officers, senior field election officers and electoral commission staff who are schedule for duties on polling day.
Anisi further clarified that the commission opted not to expand to include other essential services for the same capacity reason.
Additionally, Anisi reassured voters who fall within the pre-poll eligible category that they would have the opportunity to cast for the provincial assembly and Honiara City Council in the next election.
