common roll

His children had voted in the previous election, but were unable to do so this year. The incumbent Huon Gulf MP was at Zifasing on Wednesday to cast his vote.

His home village, which is in Morobe’s ward 19 of Wampar Rural LLG, has over 2,500 eligible voters. However, only 1,780 names were in the electoral roll.

“It’s happening everywhere in the Huon Gulf District,” he stated. “Less papers; a lot of our people are not voting. “My kids voted in 2017. In 2022, they do not have names. I think I’m lucky to have my name there to vote.

According to the research, if inflation reaches 100 per cent, it means the roll is double the estimated voting population.

Laveil shared this during the PNG Elections Series presentation facilitated by the Media Development Initiative.

According to Laveil, the trends nationally revealed 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.

Party leader, Richard Maru in a press conference held recently stated that PFP is not happy with the current common roll update and fears that many may miss out during the 2022 National General Elections.

He addressed his questions to Prime Minister James Marape in yesterday’s parliament sitting.

Dr Marat added that without reliable data from a national census, there is reasonable fear of an explosion in the number of eligible voters, which will affect the general outcome of the national elections.

The Prime Minister responded explaining why the 2020 national census did not take place.

The New Ireland Provincial Administrator and Chairman of the Provincial Election Steering Committee, Lamiller Pawut, called on the Electoral Commission exercising its Constitutional rights by charging individuals and political parties attempting to defraud the State and citizens of PNG on updates concerning the Common Roll allegedly to help the Commission.

In preparation for the 2017 National General Election, the PNG Electoral Commission (PNGEC) did its electoral roll update for voters in the nation’s capital.   

The exercise ran for 14 days, starting on November 30, with an extra 7 days in case of emergency or necessary security issues.

However, community leaders have claimed that the common roll update exercise, carried out for almost three weeks, has failed due to very poor planning, ineffective implementation and insufficient time allocation.