Hela needs extra days for polling, Bando says

Hela administrator William Bando has called on Electoral Commissioner Patilias Gamato to
extend polling in the province to two days.
“I am calling for an extra day so that everyone in Hela will have the chance to express their democratic right though voting.
“Our province is only five years old and this will be our second election and we have many challenges.”
Election manager John Tipa supported the call raised by Bando saying many places in the province were isolated and could not be accessed by road.
Tipa said that he needed one more day for the remote areas.
“One day would be used to get the polling officers into the remote areas and the other day is for polling.
“Up in the Highlands with polling taking place soon it is very hard to get access to a helicopter to fly the polling officers in to the remote areas as other Highlands province will also be using the helicopters.”
Tipa said that he was hoping for polling to be held in Hela on June 26 and 27.
He further requested for 10,000 extra ballot papers to cater for those people whose names were not on the election roll.
He said that five gazetted polling areas had no names on the common roll.
“We can just deny them their right to vote so I am requesting for 10,000 extra ballot papers to cater for these people.”
Tipa also said that the province had 253 polling booths, and 1,295 polling officers.
“We have about 200,000 plus eligible voters on the common roll, however, we need 10,000 extra ballot papers to cater for those who are not on the roll.
“We also need extra polling booths to cater for areas where there are tribal enemies.”
Tipa said that they had to separate the tribal enemies to avoid any problems during polling.