22 Feb 2014

Solomon voters must be allowed to vote freely – Haununu

1:13 pm on 22 February 2014

The Solomon Islands Electoral Commission says locals voting in this year's parliamentary elections must be allowed to vote the candidates of their own choices.

The Chief Electoral Officer, Polycarp Haununu, made the comment following revelations that intending candidates and their agents have started working on ways to get people in other electorates to register in the constituencies they will be contesting.

He says voters must cast their votes for the candidates they will support and not those they will be forced to support.

The Electoral Commission will start registering voters for the 2014 national elections on March the 10th using the Biometric Voter Registration system for the first time.

Mr Haununu says unlike the previous manual voter registration method when candidates and their agents passed on lists of names to registration officers for enrollment, the new voting system will not allow the repeat of the same practice.

He says people wanting to vote must register their names at about 800 voter registration centres in the 50 Constituencies nationwide, one at a time and not as groups.