![]() STUDENT voters at the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) voted using their student identification cards (ID) as some names were not in the common roll. This was followed by information given by the assistant returning officer Hubert Sipa that they had only 1,500 ballot papers available for that section of Ward 10 in the Moresby North-West district. “We are working with the numbers we have from the common roll and if anyone does not have their name on it then it’s not our fault,” Sipa said.“We set up a voters registration site in the university campus last Wednesday but no one turned up to confirm names or even register,” he added. However, some students disputed this claiming they were not at fault and demanded to vote using their ID cards even though their names were not on the roll.
Final year medical student Kingsford Yakapun said missing names in common rolls showed a lack of competency by the Papua New Guinea Electoral Commission. “The Electoral Commission cannot be telling us that it is our fault that our names are not on the common roll as they have the upper hand in information collection and liaising with the university through the registrar would have solved this problem ages ago,” he said. “Our registration information at the university is enough to get us registered on the common roll and I don’t see why we should have to spend time and money on doing something that the Electoral Commission is being paid to do as that is unfair.” UPNG student representative council president Melvin Tinol said that the university had no information of the recent set-up for voters registration. “According to my interaction with the UPNG registrar, voters registration forms were made available at the campus in January this year,” he said. “We had no information on the recent set-up and that is unfortunate for the student and staff.” Sipa said his team had allowed students to vote using their IDs as was done in the previous general election and last year’s by-election. “As per the requirement provided by the Election Commission, university students across the country who have lived on campus for more than six months can vote using their ID cards,” he said. Some former students of UPNG also turned up to vote at the university. The National / PNG Education News Next : Court To Review Decision On PNG University Vice-Chancellor Comments are closed.
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