Report Fonua Talei

More males have registered to vote for the 2022 General Election compared to females. This was revealed in the voter registration breakdown provided by the Fijian Elections Office.

The total number of females on the voters register as of December 31, 2020 is 324,154 (49.86 per cent) while the number of males is 325,927 (50.14 per cent) bringing the total number of registered voters at 650,081.

Supervisor of Elections Mohammed Saneem said considering international standards the fact that it was nearly half female and half male was a good sign.

Divisional Breakdown

About 42.15 per cent of registered voters are from the Central Division, 37.93 per cent from the Western Division, 14.79 per cent from the Northern Division and 3.91 per cent from the Eastern Division.

The Central Division noted an increase of registrations by 1236 voters.

Overseas registrations totalled 7867, which is equivalent to 1.2 per cent.

Mr Saneem said overseas registrations may have decreased because of people moving to Fiji.

He said the numbers were provided after the adjudication process in consultation with the Fiji Corrections Service, Immigration Department and the Fiji National Provident Fund.

The statistics is also cross checked with the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registry.

“It is very important when it comes to the voters register to notice the trend, the climb in the graph. Usually this data comes in handy to counter misinformation or disinformation on social media particularly when some people claim that a bulk of the voters have been added to the roll or registered the entire year,” he said.

He said the trend in voter registrations showed a steady increase since 2017.

The total number of registered voters in the 2018 General Election was 634,120. Edited by Selita Rabuku