Gamato explains burning of ballot papers

The 8000 plus ballot papers that were burn in Tari, Hela over the weekend were invalid ballot papers.

Electoral Commissioner Patilias Gamato clarified that the invalid ballot papers were burnt by presiding officers and witnessed by scrutinizers, candidates and security officials.

He explained that the ballot papers were invalid because they contained the name of the Koroba-Kopiago electorate and were to be used at Tari Pori.

This came after a government decision to split the 26 wards of the Avi-Pori local area in Tari-Pori electorate.

“It has 26 wards, so the government decided to split 13 wards to go into Koroba-Kopiago electorate and 13 wards to come into Tari Pori.

“When we printed the ballot papers we printed all under Koroba-Kopiago for that LLG.

“So when the ballot papers were sent to the Election Manager, they realized they could not use the Koroba- Kopiago papers in Tari Pori,” Gamato explained.

He said generic papers were later sent up to Hela to replace those for Tari.

“They’ve replaced those papers for Tari Pori simply because the name Koroba-Koipiago was printed on the ballot papers so they cannot use that in Tari Pori, so the generic papers will be,” Gamato added.

He said that when the ballot papers were printed, generic papers were also printed for issues such as these.

While Commissioner Gamato could not confirm when exactly the government decision was made to split the LLG, he said the decision was done last year.

“The decision was made by the government. I don’t make decisions on splitting the LLGs.

“Its not a National Government boundary, it’s an LLG boundary and that power is with the provincial government.

“The provincial government recommended that to NEC who made the decision last year to split the LLG,” He added.

Author: 
Sally Pokiton