Polling delayed by bad weather

Bad weather has prevented polling teams from reaching the people in the new Delta Fly and South Fly electorates in Western, an official says.
Western election manager Paul Max told The National that teams for Bamu local level government in Delta Fly and Olsobip in North Fly district had yet to conduct polling.
Max said due to heavy rain and bad weather, the teams had not been able to reach Bamu and Olsobip areas.
“We tried sending out teams on chopper and the fixed wing aircraft but bad weather prevented them from getting in.
“The teams for Olsobip tried flying out of Tabubil to those villages but were unsuccessful so I have recalled them to Kiunga to make another attempt.
“We are confident that we will still complete polling within the given time despite the delay,” Max said.
Meanwhile, polling for the Star Mountain LLG, Balimo in Middle Fly and Normad and Lake Murray in South Fly had been completed and the boxes had been taken to Kiunga and locked away in the police station.
Max said six teams in Morehead, South Fly LLG have completed polling while others were still in the process of conducting polling.
He said most teams were expected to complete polling by this week Friday and counting was expected to start soon after.
Max said three counting venues had been selected because of the difficulties of getting all the teams into one location.
He added that counting for Middle Fly and North Fly would be held in Kiunga, Delta Fly in Balimo and South Fly in Daru.
“Despite the delays due to weather, I am confident that our teams will complete polling on time for counting to proceed.
“The teams will undergo training before they start of counting, most likely at the weekend,” he said.

Voting allowed for settlers despite missing names

PEOPLE in one of the six Moresby North-West ward seven polling sites in Hohola cast their votes despite not having their names on the common roll.
The Whitehouse settlement residents did this after arguing with polling officers regarding an apparent mix up of names on common roll and limited ballot papers.
The polling station was for people living at the Whitehouse settlement between Hohola and Tokorara.
Whitehouse community leader Michael Waikele said their voting population was between 600 and 700 but the electoral official brought only 200 ballot papers.
“Many of us who have been living here for more than 20 years got names on the common roll and voted in the last election but were told not to vote in this election.”

Man angered over missing name on roll

ON Friday, residents of Paga Hill and Town were angry that their names were not on the Moresby South ward two common roll at the Town police station.
Paga Hill resident Johnson Eric said his name was not on the roll even though he had voted at the police station in the past three general elections.
“I voted here during the 2007, 2012, and 2017 general elections, however, for the 2022 general election, my name is not on the Moresby South common roll,” he said.
“My name is on the roll for Moresby North-East at the 6-Mile rugby field,” he added.
Eric said despite the relocation of Paga Hill settlers to 6-Mile his name was still on the Moresby South roll.

UPNG students vote using IDs because names not on common roll

By MELYNE BAROI
STUDENT voters at the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) voted using their student identification cards (ID) as some names were not in the common roll.
This was followed by information given by the assistant returning officer Hubert Sipa that they had only 1,500 ballot papers available for that section of Ward 10 in the Moresby North-West district.
“We are working with the numbers we have from the common roll and if anyone does not have their name on it then it’s not our fault,” Sipa said.“We set up a voters registration site in the university campus last Wednesday but no one turned up to confirm names or even register,” he added.
However, some students disputed this claiming they were not at fault and demanded to vote using their ID cards even though their names were not on the roll.
Final year medical student Kingsford Yakapun said missing names in common rolls showed a lack of competency by the Papua New Guinea Electoral Commission.
“The Electoral Commission cannot be telling us that it is our fault that our names are not on the common roll as they have the upper hand in information collection and liaising with the university through the registrar would have solved this problem ages ago,” he said.
“Our registration information at the university is enough to get us registered on the common roll and I don’t see why we should have to spend time and money on doing something that the Electoral Commission is being paid to do as that is unfair.”
UPNG student representative council president Melvin Tinol said that the university had no information of the recent set-up for voters registration.
“According to my interaction with the UPNG registrar, voters registration forms were made available at the campus in January this year,” he said.
“We had no information on the recent set-up and that is unfortunate for the student and staff.”
Sipa said his team had allowed students to vote using their IDs as was done in the previous general election and last year’s by-election.
“As per the requirement provided by the Election Commission, university students across the country who have lived on campus for more than six months can vote using their ID cards,” he said.
Some former students of UPNG also turned up to vote at the university.