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Election 2007 is on
ALL systems are ready to go come tomorrow as polling gets underway for
this year’s general elections, Chief Electoral Commissioner Andrew
Trawen said yesterday.
One-day polling for all electorates in Southern Highlands and Lae Open
start tomorrow.
All the Highlands provinces will have one-day polling with Enga on
Tuesday (July 3), Western Highlands on Friday (July 6) and Eastern
Highlands and Simbu on Monday (July 9).
For all other provinces, polling starts at different ward areas and runs
through to July 10 when polling ends.
“All the ballot papers have been printed and are out in the provinces
now. They have been allocated to teams and have been sent out as of
Wednesday,” Mr Trawen said.
He said by today all the teams would be out in their respective polling
areas.
There are 6,185 wards in 323 local level government areas throughout the
country with 4,550 polling teams and 27,500 polling officials to manage
the elections.
Mr Trawen said the common rolls were done in wards now unlike in
electorates in previous elections.
He said voting compartments, plastic seals and indelible ink and ballot
papers, posters and other materials had been sent out in containers and
had arrived at their destinations.
He said one container for Bougainville was in Rabaul but gave the
assurance that it was despatched last night and would arrive in Buka in
time for voting to start on Monday.
Mr Trawen said there were 3.9 million eligible voters to cast their
votes for the 2,759 candidates for both provincial and open electorates.
He said there were a total of 2,658 male and 101 female candidates with
1,478 independents, who made up one-third of the candidates running
under 34 registered political parties.
He said there were just over 9,100 polling places, 4,550 polling teams
working in those polling places and 27,500 polling officials, presiding
officers and poll clerks who will manage the election in various polling
places.
Mr Trawen said they encountered problems sending ballot papers and other
logistics because the Third Level airlines declined to offer their
services in the last minute.
“We did not anticipate that difficulty, so we went to the Defence Force
to allow us to use their Arava aircraft, but that problem is solved and
we are ready for Elections 2007.”
 
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