Nearly 10,000 voters have registered with the Fijian Elections Office, but the country’s updated voter registration count will not be ready until January next year.
Supervisor of Elections Mohammed Saneem said of the 66,105 voters they served during the ongoing ad-hoc voter registration campaign that started four weeks ago, 9,803 were new registrants and 56,302 people updated, upgraded, or corrected the details on their voter card.
Among the latter, 54 name change applications were received, 25 of which have been actioned, and the remainder are pending with the the Births, Deaths, and Marriage registry office. Teams from the FEO also made home visits during the course of the voter registration campaign, attended to 57 of 549 requests received.
The FEO is expected to release the updated registered voters count in January after adjudication of data including the removal of those who have passed on and incorporating newly registered voters. It will also account for verification to the provisional voter list received from the Turaga ni Koro by month end.
Meanwhile, the FEO will be closing off its ad-hoc voter registration centres this Friday, which means that from next week, any registration of new voters or updating of cards will resume at the usual voter services centres across the country.