Eligible Voters Miss Out, What went wrong?

They could not pinpoint what went wrong that has led to eligible voters missing out on casting their votes, because their Polling ended on Friday, 8^th July, in East New Britain, many eligible voters were not enrolled on the Electoral Roll.

East New Britain Provincial Election Manager Joab Voivoi said the province updated its Electoral roll four months before the issue of writs.

““We updated the 2019 LLG electoral roll and the 2017 electoral roll. Unfortunately, how people miss their names maybe it was a machine or human error.

“The rolls were updated four months before the issue of writs.

“Even if we were late, we tried our best to make sure that the roll was updated,” he added.

Similar sentiments were shared by the Kokopo Returning officer, Darius Kunai.

“From our end, we really do not know what went wrong. For us here in Kokopo, we updated the electoral roll where it was sent over to the EC head office. This covers the new enrollments, the transferees and provisional.

“The ward recorders did a fine job here but I do not know what went wrong.”

The organic law on National and Local Level Government Elections in Papua New Guinea prohibits people for voting if they are not enrolled on the electoral roll.

While, new enrollment voters expected to use the Form 11 in this elections, they too were rejected.

Frustrated village leader, Margaret Tiamon from Kabakual in the Kokopo Vunamami LLG said “Ol youths long hia i laik usim Form 11 bikos Electoral Commission ino wokim wok blong ol,’ (Some youths want to use Form 11 to vote as the Electoral Commission didn’t do their work),” she said.

Mr Voivoi said the FORM 11 was not sent to the province, hence the new voters whose names were not on the Electoral Roll also missed out. 

 “There was also no form 11 sent from the headquarters to the provinces. These forms were targeting voters who did not vote in the 2017 elections and the 2019 LLG elections, especially the new voters”.