General election

I wish to share my own experience while casting my vote on November 14, who found the voting staff members adequately trained while assisting the voters throughout the day without any delay.

I believe many people in my voting stations spent on an average at least 20 minutes or less to cast their vote. That signals a high efficiency rate and credit must go to the Fijian Elections Office (FEO) in providing such training and having a robust mechanism. However, I wish to highlight some of the challenges that the voters faced and sincerely hope that these points will be considered as learning inputs. When I texted in my voter registration number before the election it gave me the venue, the booth number and I used that directives at the venue.

But before I could go in and vote I was told that I am in the wrong room and must go to another booth where I had to join the queue. It took me more than an hour before I came home. Another interesting fact was that there were two women who were ahead of me and caused the delay, frustrating the other voters.

One of the female voters who was suffering from asthma was fast tracked in the line, but was held up for more than 20 minutes at the door because she wore nail polish. She was asked to remove it because it might cause interference with the indelible ink.

This also applied to the other women who all panicked because the handkerchiefs could not remove the polish completely.

When I asked one of the officials if there was an advisory about keeping a finger free for the electoral ink to be effective, he said yes.

When I went in to cast my vote the poor lady with asthma problem was still sitting at the door waiting for her son to bring in something that could remove the polish from one of her fingers. However, talking to some of the female voters who had cast their votes at another venue, they said no such rule was implemented there. It makes you wonder if the electoral teams were taught from the same rule book.

I believe such important facts must be communicated clearly to the public so it becomes common knowledge and assist the voters to go through the process without any problems.

The FEO must conduct a SWOT debriefing session after the election to help them capture such factors for future references.

I take this opportunity to congratulate the entire FEO team and the Fiji Police Force for a stunning performance. We commend them also for enduring the long hours to make the general election a success.