Time period for voting during pre-poll for each area depends on the number of voters – Saneem

As pre-polling starts from Monday in over 660 locations, Supervisor of Elections, Mohammed Saneem says the time period for voting for each area depends on the number of voters and if there are 100 voters, they will be given two hours because voting takes about 2 minutes.

While speaking on fijivillage Straight Talk with Vijay Narayan, Saneem says at one polling station at one point in time, 4 people can stand up and vote which is why they have allocated two hours.

Pre-polling starts in the highlands and maritime islands and for the disciplined forces on allocated days at allocated times from December 5th to 9th.

Saneem further says the voter instruction booklets have been distributed to all the places that will be voting under pre-poll so they can go through it and familiarise themselves with the candidate numbers.

The Supervisor says he has had a briefing with about 300 people who will be travelling to the islands from Sunday to conduct pre-poll on Monday.

While responding to a question by a viewer on why political banners are allowed to be up during pre-poll, Saneem says pre-polling is taking place in the islands and the highlands and a banner will be taken down if a banner is within the 300 metres boundary of the polling station.

He says if it is not within the 300 metres boundary, we cannot assume that a banner that is placed at the Nabua roundabout is going to influence a person who has not even seen it in the middle of Navosa.

While responding about the security of ballot boxes for pre-polling, Saneem says it is impossible to shove paper through the side of the box which is sealed with five seals and will remain on the box.

He says it will be tracked from the point of the polling station onto the vessel where it will be loaded in the boat which has a hull specifically for sensitive material.

Saneem says there are more police officers on every boat than Fijian Elections Office staff and ship crew.

He says at the wharf, the ballot boxes will come out of the hull and go into shipping containers which will have its own seal and then transported to the FEO warehouse where it will be stored under police guard and counted at the counting centre on election night.

Watch the full fijivillage Straight Talk interview here;