16 Jan 2006

Samoa Election Commissioner says double voters caught by new registration system

11:17 am on 16 January 2006

About 20 voters have been caught attempting to register more than once for Samoa's general election at the end of March.

Commissioner Tanuvasa Isitolo Lemisio has told the Samoa Observer newspaper

that some tried to cheat by changing their appearances or altering their hairstyles.

Samoa's new computerized voter registration system includes finger printing and digital photos.

More than 65,000 people have registered to vote, well below the voter roll for the 2001 elections which had 92,000 resgistered voters.

Tanuvasa says that voter roll was inflated because there were many cases where people registered twice and there was no system to identify double registrations.