30 unregistered voters charged

By Lanuola Tusani Tupufia 03 September 2016, 12:00AM

About 30 people have been charged by Police and are pending cases in the District Court for not registering in March’s General Election.  

Electoral Commissioner, Faimalomatumua Mathew Lemisio said the names of about 1,100 people were advertised through the media for not registering. 

He explained more than a thousand of them have come to the Electoral Office for late registration.  

“Thirty of them have been charged while the office continues its work on the others who did not register,” said Faimalo.  “Those people that came in to register did not have the pressure from election committee. 

“They came in voluntarily which means what we were doing, (advertising names) works.”

According to the Electoral Commissioner more than 40,000 people came in to their office to transfer to another electoral roll before the 2016 election. 

He said complaints about the long queues before the 2016 election to get transfers and register could have been avoided if people did not leave it until the last minute. 

The Electoral Commissioner reminded members of the public their office is always open for transfers and to get registration to avoid last minute runs in the upcoming election in 2021. 

Meanwhile, the Electoral Office is working on confirming and removing the names of deceased voters from the electoral roll. 

The Commissioner said there are only two ways where the deceased names can be removed. 

It is either confirmation from the Bureau of Statistics or by being confirmed by an immediate family member.  Faimalo said the Office will soon confirm the number of deceased voters and he acknowledged the collaborative support of Ali’i and Faipule in their work.

By Lanuola Tusani Tupufia 03 September 2016, 12:00AM
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