Supervisor of Elections, Mohammed Saneem stresses the registration of a voter on the National Register of Voters is valid for life and it is the voter card that is currently being upgraded.
This follows comments made by Fiji Labour Party Leader, Mahendra Chaudhry that a voter card does not have an expiry date.
In a statement, Saneem says Chaudhry did not attend the Political Parties Virtual meeting convened by the Supervisor of Elections yesterday and as such he has missed out on all the information in relation to voter cards, voter registration, polling venue management and election preparation.
He says the apparent lack of accurate information in Chaudhry’s statement can be attributed to his failure to attend the meeting.
Saneem says the announcement of the expiry of the green voter card has been done since 2019.
He says on 25th May 2020, the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Suresh Chandra announced that the green voter cards would expire on 30th June 2021.
Saneem says under section 19D (3) of the Electoral (Registration of Voters) Act 2012, the Supervisor of Elections has upgraded the security features of the voter card and as such the same was announced to have expired.
He says all voters that are holding on to the green voter card will have to upgrade to the blue voter card.
Saneem urges political parties to attend all the meetings and workshops so that they can be up-to-date with accurate knowledge of the electoral processes.
Meanwhile Chaudhry had claimed in a press statement that a voter card does not have an expiry date and has questioned why is the Supervisor of Elections trying to create more confusion by saying that the green voter cards have expired.
The FLP Leader asks why are voters being forced to go through all this unnecessary rigmarole.
He says whether there is a green card, a blue card or no card, if you can produce the correct identification to show you are registered on the Voter Roll, you must be allowed to vote.
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