Scrutineers Sharpen Up For Election Watchdog Role

By Martha Faavae Taumata

A noisy crowd of more than a 100 election scrutineers turned up at the general election nerve centre at Tuanaimato this morning for a final brush up of their watchdog role of the polling.

Most were campaign organisers for election candidates many of whom were also present in the question and answer session.

The Office of the Electoral Commissioner senior officials went over the full extent of the scrutineers responsibilities during the two-hour session that started at 10.00am in the morning.

“The responsibilities of scrutineers are to monitor and scrutinize all activities and performance of polling officials,” OEC senior officials explained.

Scrutineers include in their monitoring role the checking of all ballot boxes before they leave for polling sites.

All are also to attend the opening of the ballot boxes when they are brought in and the provisional count of votes taken and in the official final count.

Key dates are pre-polling from 5^th April – 8^th of April followed by polling day on 9^th of April 2021.

Distribution of special votes into their respective constituencies is on 10^th April at Tuanaimato.

The official count is fro the 12^th April to the 16^th of April 2021.