Lawyer claims ghost names on common roll

By JAMES GUMUNO
A LAWYER has claimed that the common roll update in Western Highlands is filled with ghost names.
Danny Gonol, a senior lawyer with Paulus Dowa Lawyers and a community leader in the Tambul district, said it was obvious that four districts in the province faced the same problem.
And to prevent election-related problems during polling and after the declaration, he urged the Electoral Commission to quickly send the updated common rolls back to the districts to be checked by the people.
The sooner the Electoral Commission does this, the quicker it would be to get rid of the ghost names and include those who missed out, he said.
He warned that they were running against time – and there should be time allowed to make the corrections.
He hoped that there would not be a repeat of the 2007 general
election where eligible voters missed out on voting because their names were not on the roll while there were cases of double-voting in some areas.
“I do not want to pin-point but want the electors to see the common roll and make adjustments in order to have a correct common roll in place before going to the polls,” he said.
He warned the Electoral Commission that if it did not release the common roll quickly to be checked by the voters, it would face a lot of problems.  
Gonol said leaders must not buy “votes” but allow the people to use their democratic rights to elect them on merit.