606,092 eligible to vote – Saneem
A TOTAL of 606,092 voters will be eligible to vote on December 14.
This was confirmed by Supervisor of Elections Mohammed Saneem during a briefing over the weekend. Mr Saneem also confirmed that at the conclusion of the postal vote verification process, the Fijian Elections Office (FEO) had received 9916 postal vote applications.
Mr Saneem said about 869 postal vote applications came from voters who had initially registered to vote from overseas, 5017 from the Central Division, 2801 from the Western Division, 978 from the Northern Division and 251 from the Eastern Division.
“As you are aware the law that had been amended to allow voters who had previously been registered overseas to vote on Election Day means that now, 8558 voters who had registered overseas but are not postal voters will be able to vote at the St Stephens Building here in Suva for a special polling station that we have created for them,” he said.
“My team is now in the process of finalising the voter roll for the 2022 General Election.”
He said as per the law, any person approved as a postal voter would be marked on the roll as a postal voter and they would not be able to vote at their polling station on Election Day.
Voters can confirm whether they are postal voters by texting their voter card number to 1500.
According to Mr Saneem, they had not rejected any postal vote application that came completed, however, in the case of missing witnessing signatures or incomplete details, the application was rejected.
He said those whose applications were rejected would have to vote at their polling venue.
A total of 77, 907 voters will be eligible to vote in pre-poll, which begins on December 5.