A SPECIAL polling venue will be set up in Suva for voters who are not registered to vote in the country and are not postal voters, says Supervisor of Elections (SOE) Mohammed Saneem.
While presenting his submissions to a parliamentary standing committee yesterday, Mr Saneem said the amendments to the Electoral Act 2014 would to give these voters an opportunity to be a part of the election process.
“The amendments will require and will also allow the SOE to establish a polling venue in Suva, for voters who are registered overseas but are not postal voters to cast their vote in this polling venue,” he said.
“This would give an opportunity for those voters to be part of the election process as well, as long as they are in Suva on the date of election.”
He said this was not possible in the past two general elections because the law did not allow for it.
He said it was the first time this opportunity would be given to overseas registered voters and that because there was only one voter list showing overseas registered voters.
Depending on voter turnout, the service would be extended to other parts of the country in the following elections.
“This is the first time such an opportunity is being made available to anyone who registered from overseas.
“We started with Suva and if the turnout is impressive then definitely there will be proposals made to expand the services.”
