Registration expands in Week 2
Electronic voter registration (EVR) officer Losalini Marawa assists 60 year-old Inoke Mocelutu in having a photo taken during registration. Photo: RONALD KUMAR.
By FONUA TALEI
Fiji’s electronic voter registration (EVR) exercise will continue this week at more than 120 voter registration centres (VRCs) across the country.
“Registration began last week at 10 VRCs in major centres and 18,058 Fijians were registered,” the Attorney-General and Minister responsible for Elections, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum said. “This week will see the opening of more than 100 new voter registration centres, drastically expanding the EVR exercise by providing more locations and opportunities for Fijians to register.”
Over the weekend, more than 180 registration clerks were briefed before being deployed to their respective VRCs across the country.
“The Elections Office is currently focused on ensuring that all voting-age Fijians, who are spread across more than 100 islands, have the opportunity and ability to register during this eight-week period,” the Attorney-General said.
“However, Government wants to reassure those Fijians who are not yet 18, who live overseas, or whose health or age genuinely prevents them from travelling to a VRC, that their unique needs and requirements will be addressed, whether during this period of EVR, or after it.”
“For those Fijians who are not yet 18, but who will turn 18 before the scheduled 2014 elections - upon turning 18, they will be able to register at a limited number of VRCs that will remain open after the eight-week period of EVR ends in August. For those Fijians who live overseas - the Elections Office is currently focusing its energy and resources on ensuring that the EVR deployment plan is carried out in a credible and transparent manner. After this process has been completed, the Elections Office can then properly reach out to those Fijians living abroad.
For those Fijians whose age or health genuinely prevents them from travelling in person to a VRC - the Elections Office is currently making arrangements so that mobile registration teams will be able to visit them during the second half of the registration period.
For each of these groups, information on the details of these plans will follow in due course.
All Fijians of voting age, 18 years and older, are encouraged to consult the public notices published in the Fiji Sun and broadcast on radio to find the dates and opening hours of VRCs near them.
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