Quality checks for Moresby North-West by-election starts

ACTING Electoral Commissioner Simon Sinai says quality checks for the Moresby North-West by-election have started after delay for a day due to candidates claiming vote rigging.
Sinai said that checks started yesterday at 2pm at the Sir John Guise Stadium after suspension on Wednesday.
“I would like to appeal to all voters, supporters and candidates for the Moresby North-West electorate to resort to genuine and updated information released from the Office of PNG Electoral Commission and refrain from misleading public with false reports that may cause mayhem among them,” Sinai said.
“There was no court order given to the Electoral Commission to stop the count.
“The court of disputed return is where the candidates should submit their petition, thus, we will commence with quality checks.
“Time is also against us as the return of writs will be on June 24 – in a week’s time.”
Sinai said counting was suspended after disgruntled scrutineers and candidates demanded the Electoral Commission to include all presiding officers in the count to verify their signatures on the ballot papers which prompted the quality checks to be suspended.
“They further demanded the Electoral Commission to use a projector to display all presiding officers’ signatures on a huge screen so they can verify their initials.” Meanwhile, Sinai said “all 136 ballot boxes from the five counting centres were brought to Sir John Guise Stadium for checks and elimination.
“Out of these boxes, one from Ward 10 was disputed by the scrutineers and was set aside by the returning officers.
The counting of first preference votes was completed on Monday. The top five candidates in the race are:

1. Lohia Boe Samuel: 16,985
2. Joe Tonde: 8,848
3. Thaddeus Kambanei: 5,604
4. Sengol A Pakop: 5,433
5. Walter Yangomina: 3,374

The total eligible voters on the Moresby North-West electoral roll is 89,500.
The ballot papers were printed according to the total number of voters on the electoral roll.
The extra 680 generic ballot papers sums up to 90,180.
These extra 680 generic ballot papers were printed and distributed five each to 136 polling teams in all five wards.
The purpose is to cater for spoilt papers or errors by voters marking their votes.
During the one-day polling on June 4, only 58,661 voters cast their votes, which resulted in 30,839 ballot papers not been used.
The unused papers were returned by presiding officers and their teams and locked away in storage containers after polling.
These are accountable documents that form part of the presiding officers’ election journal.