Tari-Pori to start counting

By REBECCA KUKU in Tari
COUNTING for the Tari-Pori seat in Hela will begin today, says assistant election manager Anne Pame.
She said polling had been completed and all 16 ballot boxes for the electorate were transported back to Tari on Monday evening and locked away.
“This is because the Tari-Pori electorate has one of the smallest populations in Hela,” she said.
“Plus the electorate is connected by road to the main town, so it was easy to transport the ballot boxes back to town after polling was completed on Monday.” Pame said due to the restricted timeframe, counting would start today.
“We already have the counting place set up, counting will be done in LLGs.
We already have counting teams in place.”
However, if the election manager allowed the team a day’s rest then they start counting tomorrow.
“But we are working around the clock to start off counting for the Tari-Pori electorate.”
Meanwhile, all ballot boxes were sent to Tari yesterday.
“Places with road connections, we were able to extract right after polling on Monday afternoon,” Pame said.
For remote areas, all ballot boxes were flown back today.
“So far I am very pleased with the turnout for this election compared with past elections.
“This year’s was quiet, peaceful and not a lot of issues was reported.
“We have yet to receive reports of any major incident, but so far, it has been successful.”
“I believe counting will also run smoothly,” she said.
Pame said only one ballot box was destroyed compared with past elections. “Only one ballot box was destroyed from a polling place in Pori, so 16 out of 17 boxes were brought back for counting,” he said.
“For Komo, only three boxes were destroyed, and North Koroba only two boxes were destroyed.”
Pame said Hela had 14 LLGs and counting, unlike before, would be done in LLGs.
“Each LLG will have its own counting station and all numbers will be updated on the main tally board.
“For Tari-Pori, we expect counting to be completed in three days.”

Lae could start counting tomorrow

COUNTING of ballot papers for Lae district should start as early as tomorrow at the Sir Ignatius Stadium Indoor Complex, says Returning Officer Kusak Meluk.
“The counting should proceed on Thursday but that depends on how fast we can prepare the place for counting,” Meluk said.
“Two counts will be conducted down there, when we’ve finished with Lae open we will continue with the regional seat. For regional, we will wait for teams from outside districts to come in. Then we will start counting at the same place.”
Morobe election manager Simon Soheke said as soon as they got the staff and the counting place ready with reports on what should be done at the counting venue, they would start the counting.
“We are preparing the counting centre to make sure everything is ready then hopefully by Thursday we should do the counting for Lae,” he said.
“As soon as the polling is complete for any district, the officials will do one-day preparations. Reporting and the counting start after the polling reports are done.”

NCD public servants given day off to vote

PUBLIC servants in the National Capital District (NCD) will be given time off today to cast their votes in the one-day polling for the General Election 2022.
Department of Personnel Management secretary Taies Sansan said they should resume normal duties tomorrow, July 7.
She also urged private sector employers to give their workers time off today.
“This is to inform public servants and employees residing in the NCD that they will be given time off to exercise their constitutional rights to vote for their leaders,” Sansan said.
She also advised heads of government agencies to allow their workers registered in Central and Gulf ample time to travel to their homes to vote.
“Public servants and employees in Central and Gulf (should) be given ample time to travel to their polling venues to vote,” she added.

NCD polling today as planned, counting from Friday

By LULU MAGINDE
NATIONAL Capital District (NCD) election manager Kila Ralai says the one-day polling for NCD will proceed as planned today, with counting expected to begin on Friday.
Despite allegations raised by candidates of Moresby North-East and NCD Regional, disputing the transportation of ballot papers in an attempt to tamper with a certain number of papers, Ralai when addressing candidates yesterday said all 58 boxes for both seats, contained legal ballot papers.
“All the boxes were in order and not tampered with. The ballot papers were printed in Australia in April, while they were still carrying out common roll updates for NCD, so the four additional boxes were containing the 8,000 ballot papers that were not sealed, were checked to ensure that they balanced the polling locations and figures,” he said.
He added that all ballot papers should account for the population according to the 2017 common roll, with a mark-up of 15 per cent (determined by national planning), as captured in the common roll update carried out earlier this year.
Electoral Commission officials carried out ballot paper distributions at Sir John Guise Stadium yesterday according to the 201 polling teams to verify whether there were reserve ballot papers.
Moresby North-East Returning Officer Billy George said all ballot papers would be transported by the polling teams along with 185 police escorting teams to their respective sites early today.
“The number of boxes picked up on Sunday was 58 for Moresby North-East and NCD Regional ballot papers, as listed on my roll, with one booklet containing pink and blue ballot papers for the open and provincial seats,” he said.