Connie Samban who lived all her life in Wewak was not able to cast her vote at the Ward 2 polling area as well as her son.
After being turned away for not having her name in the common roll, she sat outside the polling area together with many other women and young men and women who stayed around all day hoping the officials would somehow create some way for them to vote.
She was not alone in this. Another concerned voter, Peter Maru who was able to vote but was concerned that a very small number of voters only were able to vote.
Maru and Samban argued that the polling officials should find a way to let those who had been waiting whole day to cast their vote as concerned citizens. They started asking openly to let them vote instead of those people whose names appear but did not turn up to vote.
However, it’s not all gloomy as in general, as the elections in Wewak Urban for the two days had been described by scrutineers as “Fair, Safe and Peaceful” despite the sad fact of disappointments of not having names in the common roll.
Geoffrey Muri, one scrutineer of a candidate in the Wewak Open Seat spoke on behalf of the group of scrutineers present and said there were 977 eligible voters names in the common roll but not all of those turned up to vote.
Instead, there were others who turned up but had not names and thus ballot boxes where not filled up as many didn’t vote.
Since it was the second and the last day, Muri and his colleagues just kept their fingers crossed with the number of votes that were cast in the last two days.