No registration deadline extension : Saitala

The Solomon Islands Electoral Commission, SIEC, will NOT alter tomorrow as the deadline for the Biometric Voter Registration phase.

Chief Electoral Officer, Mose Saitala sternly emphasised.

Mr. Saitala said there was no extension to the deadline as National General Elections were due not later than 16 April 2019.

Mr Saitala addsed,  sticking to the deadline provides them ample time to plan for unforeseen circumstances.

“So any further deferring of the timeline, it would have an impact because we never know, I am allowing almost less than a month for the elections to happen before 16th of April of 2019 but that is very very important because I have to plan for natural disasters,” he said.

“I have to have some kind of fall back positions if we have tsunamis and things like that might disrupt the timing of the election as you know those times when we have natural disasters we have to cater for that because people need to access voting polling stations.”

The Chief Electoral Officer urged people to properly register before tomorrow as they might lose their right to vote.

“So if you have transferred yourself and you know that you want to correct your transfer, visit the voting centre you’ll have to refill again the Form, Form B,” he said.

“In other words you’ll have to refill that Form B again and revert back to where you’re rightly qualified to vote. The reason is this because if you are being objected to in the place that you are going to register, it is very very sad because your name might be taken out.”

BY: Rickson Bau