THE acting Electoral Commissioner Simon Sinai has appealed to all voters, supporters and candidates for Moresby North-West electorate to resort to genuine and updated information released from the office of PNG Electoral Commission and refrain from misleading public on false reports that may cause mayhem.
Mr Sinai made these remarks following a report published claiming a total of 30,000 extra ballot papers were printed for the Port Moresby North-West election.
He clarified that the Electoral Commission has printed the ballot papers according to the total number of eligible voters for the Moresby North West electorate.
“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.”
He explained that a total of 680 were the extra generic ballot papers which sums up to 90,180 total ballot papers printed.
“These extra 680 generic ballot papers were printed and distributed five each to 136 polling teams in all five wards.
“The purpose of these extra generic ballot papers are to cater for spoilt or any errors that will occur by voters making their votes.
“During the one day polling on Friday 4th of June 2021, only 58, 661 voters cast their votes, which resulted in 30,893 ballot papers not been used.
“The unused ballot papers were safely 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 (POs) election journal,” Mr Sinai said.
The polling statistics have indicated that 65 precent of the eligible voters for Moresby North-West cast their vote while 35 precent have not voted.
“This shows that there was an increase in voter turnout with comparison to 2017 where 47 precent of voters who were on the electoral roll turned up to vote,” Mr Sinai said.
The overall total informal votes for all five wards was 916, of which ward 11 which covers the Gerehu areas have recorded the highest informal of 261 votes. In comparison to 2017 National election, the informal recorded in Moresby North-West electorate was 1,255 votes.