Posted By Staff Reporter
By Brian Folock Imagine you are a candidate and you vote yourself in your own council ward with your family, only to find out, during counting, your score 'zero' from that box. You are left wondering, what may have happened, to your own vote, or that of your family and supporters. What happened?? This peculiar scenario is only found in Papua New Guinea. Voting in this country is screwed with some of the most extreme cases of election irregularities such as rigging. What had happened to your own vote let alone your family's votes if not your supporters' votes supposing you are a candidate yourself? What happened? There are many areas to ponder what had happened. 1. The Presiding Officer who presided over that particular polling booth may have rigged it and marked another candidate instead of you as your own vote. THIS PRACTICE IS VERY POPULAR AND COMMON. IT IS FAR A WORSE POLITICAL EXPERIENCE IN THE HIGHLANDS region. Presiding Officers get bribes and sway or deviate voters choices to their 'liking' factored by the bribes they receive. Presiding Officers are Election Officers who take charge of a polling booth and actually mark votes and sign off on the used ballot papers. They capitalise on that power transferred to them to get bribes and to rig votes. Polling booths in very remote council wards with 99% illiterate voters, Presiding Officers take the vote for and on behalf of the voters - they mark and sign their own candidates. People do not vote for their candidates of choices.
2. Swapping Of Ballot Boxes. The ballot box you put your vote plus that of your family and supporters can be swapped. After a polling booth is closed, the ballot box is locked with tags with serial numbers and taken away to the nearest police station and counting venue thereafter. Along the way, a ballot box, with same tags and serial numbers from the "bush" can blog in, swapped with the original ballot box containing the real votes. It happens so fast and very interestingly, under the watchful eyes of security forces. To undertake this dangerous form of election irregularity, it involves high profile people inside the PNG Electoral Commission, Ballot Box producers, Tags and Serial Number producers, Security Forces engaged to provide security, Electioneering Officers like Presiding Officers and many more who execute the preempted swapping of ballot box. This trend is gaining momentum and in 2022, the National Election to be undertaken would be brought under one of the country's worst election experience. 3. Removal of Votes. When the Presiding Officer is under heavy bribery, a candidates vote can be removed from his or her ballot box. This can be done to prevent a candidate from winning as well as to register at the Court of Disputed Returns. This is a rare case. What had happened to your own vote in your own polling booth as a candidate? Any one of the above may have happened. And thats only in PNG! Next : COMMERCIALIZED POLITICS IN PNG: A Threat To Withering Democracy And Challenge To Young Leaders Note: Let Your Views be heard : Send all your Political Commentaries to us through our email : pngfacts@gmail.com Share this Comments are closed.
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