Accurate Electoral Roll Needed

An accurate and credible electoral roll ensures a credible electoral process thus the electoral roll is a vital component of the election process in any elections.

However, PNG’s elections have been plagued with an inaccurate electoral roll. Ever since 1987, the number of registered voters on the roll has exceeded the estimated voting population aged 18 years and over.

According to Maholopa Laveil, an Economics Lecturer at the School of Business and Public Policy, University of Papua New Guinea, the electoral roll has been inflated across PNG during the country’s nine election terms.

The trends nationally reveal that roll inflation began at 6 percent in 1987, rose to peak at 75 percent in 2002, before falling in 2007 and again in 2017 to 13 percent.

Moreover, the roll has been recreated three times prior to the 1987, 2002 and 2007 elections.

The 2007 roll recreation is regarded as the most successful, while the 2016 roll update, however, was unsuccessful.

According to Dorney (2017), the Commonwealth Observer Mission to the 2012 PNG elections reported considerable problems with the roll and recommended 'urgent action' be taken to fix these.

However, in the last election (2017) it seemed that the problem was worse; names were obviously culled that should not have been.

The 2017 electoral roll was developed for the 2007 election, updated first in 2012 and then again in 2017.

Moreover, in 2017, there were concerns raised by intending candidates on the credibility of the common roll.

The then Electoral Commissioner (EC), Patilus Gamato, admitted that the roll he inherited, which was used in the 2012 general elections, was inflated.

This same scenario seems to be playing out for this year’s general elections, with the current EC, Simon Sinai, promising an updated roll by next month (four months before polling).

Updating the common roll is a mammoth task that requires considerable funding.

Author: 
Freddy Mou