POSITIVE REPORTS ON POLLING IN TAILEVU

(May 11th, 2006 No. 83)

There were positive reports that were passed on by four of the Presiding Officers today from four of the Polling stations in the Tailevu area.

Presiding Officer at the Wailotua Primary School polling station, Filimone Kilawekana said that the polling in his station was quite effective and voters were satisfied with the services provided by the polling officials.

He added that voting yesterday (10/05) and today had pretty much slowed down in numbers.

“Yesterday we had only four people who came in to cast their votes and today since we opened at 8am and now its 12 noon so far we have served only three (3 ) voters.”

Mr Kilawekana attributed the low voter turnout to the fact that polling this year is much different then previous polls.

“There has been an increase in the number of polling stations and for us, many voters have been sucked into the other neighboring polling stations such as Nasautoka and Naiyala Secondary School.”

In addition, he added that compared to the last general elections which had its expected voter number at 350, this year they are expecting a much lower turnout and so far for the last four days the station had started polling, a total of 139 votes have been cast.

On the other hand, they have not faced any major problem as far as polling was concerned. On the question of unregistered voters, there had been none so far and there was only one voter who had her name misprinted but was dealt with through the supplementary rolls.

Likewise, there were similar results from the Ratu Filimoni Primary School Polling station.

This was confirmed by the Presiding Officer at the station Marika Balawakula.

Mr. Balawakula said that there were some unregistered voters. This was simply because they had registered in another constituency.

There were instances where the names produced by the voters were not the same as those on the rolls but this was dealt with and they were able to cast their votes.

However, it was a smooth day for the polling station at the Namena District School. Presiding Officer Mr. Filimoni Turagarua said that the only problem they faced for the day was a voter under the general seat whose name was not registered.

In addition, they also dealt with four incapacitated voters who were allowed to vote in a special room much closer to where their transport so as to minimize the distance they had to be taken. Apart from these, there were no major concerns.

From 8am when they opened to around 1pm, they station had served 199 voters who came to cast their votes.

The Waidalice Primary School polling station was opened at 8am and by 3pm, the Presiding officer, Berenado Mow confirmed that 570 voters who had cast their votes and there was still a long queue waiting to be served.

There were 5 voters who did not have their names in the rolls and this took sometime coupled with those names that either misspelled or the names that they produced were not the same as those on the roll.

However time consuming these incidents were, most of the voters were able to cast their votes apart from the five that were not registered because at that point, the Polling officials could not do anything about it.

Mr. Mow added that they were very particular with the spelling of names and the smallest of errors were carefully dealt with until they were completely satisfied.

The manner in which the ballot papers were brought in the morning and likewise its transportation in the evening was the same for all of the four polling stations.

There were slight differences in the time of delivery of ballot papers and boxes in the morning because of the difference in their respective differences.

Closing time for the four stations were confirmed at 5:00pm and the delivery of the ballot boxes were by either government vehicles or hired ones by the

Presiding officers themselves a Police escort.

The ballot boxes are then taken to the Box team at the District Office in Korovou where verifications are done before they are transported to the count centre in Suva Grammar.

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