Voter update launched

 By TAUNA GEORGE
Papua New Guinea has an inflated common roll due to movement of people from their homes, Chief Electoral Commissioner Patalius Gamato says.
He pointed out that ghost names in the common roll is one of the biggest problems faced by the commission.
“The reason why we have an inflated roll was because people vote in one place and later move on to another place without updating their details with us. Some people miss out on the listings,” Gamato said.
“For example, you live in Port Moresby where your name is registered and later move to Rigo and find that your name is not registered in the electoral roll.”
Gamato urged citizens who had moved to go to their respective district electoral office to fill out registration forms so that their names canbe  registered.
He said only through this process the commission would be able to balance the numbers or reduce inaccuracy.
Gamato said they started work on the common roll since last year with the support of the Australian High Commission.
He said PNG was not different to other countries in the world who go through similar difficulties of having inconsistency in the common rolls during the launch of the 2016 electoral roll update at Kwikila Station yesterday.
Rigo district is now the first area in PNG to launch the roll update.
Gamato launched the updating project and opened a new office provided by the district administration to be used by the  commission..
Rigo is expected to complete the roll exercise in the next two months.
Gamato said the project would be rolled out to five other districts.