MARKED BALLOT PAPER HAD LINE AND NOT A TICK - KARAVAKI

(May 13th, 2006 No. 91)

Supervisor of Elections, Semesa Karavaki yesterday clarified an incident in which it was said that one of the polling clerks had put a tick on the ballot paper before it was given to a voter at a polling station in Rewa.

The voter alleged that his/her ballot paper had a tick on it and upon investigation it was clarified that it was not a tick but a line or a dot on the paper that may have been caused during the stamping of the ballot papers.

“It was not a tick and it was not done to deceive anybody, they had looked into that and in both instances there were two cases in Nakaikogo Sangam School in Rewa and both cases are similar where a mark was found to have been on the ballot paper which was not made by the polling clerk.

“And it was referred to me in the first place because I had instructed the Returning Officer Central and also the ARO to terminate anyone that is found to have been responsible for that.

“So as a result of that they had called me back after they had carried out the investigation and they said no it was not a tick or somebody had done it deliberately, it was a mark that was on the paper perhaps it was done when they were stamping and probably somebody was holding a pen at the same time.”

Mr Karavaki said that obviously it was something that was not carried out in both the polling stations.

Both voters he said were issued with new ballot papers for them to mark their votes on.

Meanwhile, the Supervisor is confident of a very strong finish with regards to the number of voter turn out in polling stations around the country.

“And I still believe in that, given the figures that we are now looking at, we continue to improve in the voter’s turn out we continue to improve in the services provided by the people at polling stations, we continue to take note of the weaknesses that were there from the beginning and improve on them, attending to those weaknesses so that we can have a strong finish when we reach the last day tomorrow (today).”

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