East New Britain records 7443 informal votes

National

By ELIZABETH VUVU
EAST New Britain recorded 7443 informal votes during the national election, according to official statistics.
The data was compiled by senior officers of the provincial administration in the past two weeks.
Deputy provincial administrator corporate services Nicholas Larme handed over the report to deputy provincial administrator socio-economic services Levi Mano.
It revealed that there were 180,049 formal ballot papers and 7443 informal ones.
Team leader of the central tally room Henry Tavul said the figures were obtained from the counting centres in the four districts and the centre for the provincial seat.
Tavul said the number of informal votes indicated that more awareness needed to be done on the voting system.
“It is only when we continue to pretend we know everything, we end up making mistakes during polling.
“This results in informal ballot papers which cannot be accepted,” Tavul said.
Tavul said Rabaul district recorded the least informal votes of 632.
Mano said the report must be made available to residents, business houses and non-government organisations so that they could react to it.
Mano admitted that only when people were properly educated on the voting system would they turn up to vote and cast their votes properly.