Election Commission must sort out East New Britain issue now

ON the eve of the objection period and we are already reading in our daily papers that many people who are eligible to vote in the 2017 general election do not have their names registered in the electoral rolls.
The election manager for East New Britian, Joab Voivoi, has told his superiors at the Electoral Commission that he does not have enough Form 11 for his province, which would deprive some eligible voters their right to cast a ballot.
The commission must give the matter priority before it is too late.
It must ensure that there are enough forms for people who have just turned 18 and will be eligible to vote for the first time and those who have relocated for whatever reason.
The commission should have considered this when it updated the electoral roll.
The returning officer for the Rabaul open electorate mentioned that 1800 to 2000 eligible voters were yet to be registered and his colleague for Gazelle also pointed out that there was a shortage of the Form 11.
The same was mentioned by the Manus electoral manager.
If these complaints are true, what about the other provinces?
Voters from Finschhafen and Huon Gulf have complained that they voted in the 2012 elections but could not find their names on the updated electoral roll.
They were assured by the electoral manager, Simon Soheke, that their names were on the “base roll” which appears to be something new.
This “base roll” does not even exist under Part V – Electoral Roll of the Organic Law on National and Local Level Government Elections so what was the manager referring to?
Morobe students at the University of Papua New Guinea carried out an election awareness recently where they pointed out that the main challenge was the electoral roll update.
They reported that many eligible voters were yet to complete Form 11 to get themselves enrolled.
It is obvious that we have very serious issues to attend to in regard to the roll update exercise and the commission must make every effort to fix them.
It could consolidate the supplementary rolls with the existing rolls and develop a new preliminary roll.
It should then verify the names during the objection period.
The commission must also quickly distribute more of the Form 11 to the provinces.
If this does not happen, be prepared to face the consequences.

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