Govt keen on changes in electoral roll

THE Electoral Commission is adamant and will sort out all the shortcomings of the electoral roll before the 2012 National Elections, Electoral Commissioner Andrew Trawen said yesterday.
Speaking at the electoral roll consultative stakeholders forum at the National Research Institute, Mr Trawen said that the Electoral Commission (EC) had classified the roll as the highest priority to address before the next national elections.
He said this was a particularly important forum and could not overstated the importance of the commission listening with an open mind to the input of the forum participants.
Mr Trawen also said it would not be able to undertake all the matters that needed to be carried out.
However, he assured stakeholders that together with his team, he would genuinely want to improve the “electoral roll” but would only happen through sufficient funding.
“We need to improve all aspects of  the process, from data capture right through to how we print  high quality electoral roll that are user-friendly for the public and for election officials to use on polling day.
“The electoral roll is at the top of the table of strategic issues identified in the EC’s corporate plan 2008-12,” Mr Trawen said.
He said the stakeholders must deal with the accuracy and integrity of the electoral roll, the quality of the enumeration and data management processes, the capacity for the roll to be corrupted and the manner in which the EC presented information to the public.