CEO clarifies issuance of tendered ballot papers during polling
BY JENNIFER KUSAPA
CHIEF Electoral Officer Solomon Islands Electoral Commission Jasper Anisi, sheds light on the matter of tendered ballot papers issued by some presiding officers at few polling station during polling day.
Anisi said at each polling stations across the country there were 25 tendered ballot papers provided to account for situations where individuals arrived at the polling station only to find that someone had already voted using their name.
Anisi said such cases, the presiding officer would issue a tendered ballot paper to the affected voter, which would then be placed in an envelope for tendered papers. However, due to oversight or pressure, a few presiding officers mistakenly allowed some of these tendered papers to be directly inserted into the regular ballot box
However, on polling day on April 17, some presiding officers seeing the queue outside the polling stations, instead of issuing ordinary ballot papers to voters, they issue the tendered ones to voters.
“Brings the question to the commission whether or not that ballot papers are valid; Commission had made a decision and validate all the tendered ballot papers that is inside the ballot box.
“We are not going to penalize the voters… not one polling station but few polling stations across encounter that incident, mistakes can happen in big operations like this,” Anisi said.
Meanwhile Attorney General John Muria Jnr, said the first page of the ballot papers are the same and all ballot papers are meant to be casted but the circumstance are different and in this circumstance the right of every voter is paramount and for this reason, commission decided to validate that ballot paper to be counted.
