ballot boxes

Polye’s lawyer asked the Waigani National Court to issue orders for the Kandep returning officer to have certain ballot boxes counted before declaration.

Those ballot boxes were set aside during scrutiny and Polye, in a statement that was produced in court, said those boxes were not objected by either polling officials or scrutineers.

He asked the court to compel the returning officer, Ben Besawe, to comply with a direction of the Electoral Commissioner to have them all admitted for counting. This direction was later retracted by the commissioner.

There they will be kept until counting starts on Thursday (July 13).

The last box arrived late yesterday, according to Returning Officer Theodore Maia.

Maia said today they will be doing the summary and tomorrow the brief-in for counting officials and scrutineers.

Counting for Goilala Open and Central regional from the district will begin this week.

Electoral Commissioner, Patilias Gamato, says teams 92 to 100, in Selau Suir, are holding onto the boxes until payment is made.

Gamato said the commission is currently working to address the issue so that the boxes are returned.

Polling in ARoB is scheduled to conclude by Wednesday.

In other parts of the New Guinea Islands, counting for East New Britain is scheduled for Friday once all ballot boxes are brought into Kokopo.

Polling in Manus has been completed while West New Britain is expected to be completed as of yesterday.

With just five days away to the commencement of polling on June 24, Manus Provincial Police Commander, Chief Inspector David Yapu, is warning people from making false allegations or speculations.

“Such allegation is false and not true and will create doubts in the mindset of the voters,” PPC Yapu made these comments when ruling out rumours that seven ballot boxes were brought to the province and hidden away, awaiting polling.

The province received one container last week containing 316 ballot boxes out of the total 1,156 boxes.

Enga election manager Anton Iamau said two more containers arrived yesterday in the province and they are now counting the total number of ballot boxes they contain.

Iamau said the highlands region requires metal ballot boxes to be used for polling.

However, from the two containers they received yesterday, one contains metal ballot boxes while the other contains clear ballot boxes.