Majority of the voting population will be below the age of 40 years in the next general elections.

Supervisor of Elections, Mohammed Saneem says the last registration drive that ended on 3rd September has taken the number of 18 to 20 year olds registered to vote in this elections to 37,063.

He says the largest cohort of voters is from 31 to 40 years old at 157,869.

The 21 to 30 years is at 155,812.

Saneem says the registration driver was pretty successful, and they managed to serve around 62,000 Fijians. A bonanza draw was also done where 100 Fijians won $100 each.

689,974 voters have been registered to vote in the general elections, and out of these voters, 593,134 Fijians are on the blue voter card while 96,840 voters are on the green voter card.

Supervisor of Elections, Mohammed Saneem says of the total number of registered voters, 346,129 are males while 343,845 are females.

9,269 voters registered to vote are from overseas. Saneem says they have established that there are 50,748 males and 46,092 females that are still on the green voter card, which is a very big concern.

1,948 people in the Eastern Division are on the green voter card, 9,271 voters in the Northern Division, 41,684 Fijians in the Central Division, 39,928 in the Western Division and 4,009 overseas registered voters are on the green voter card.

Saneem says their research has revealed that a lot people in the town areas of Suva and Lautoka are yet to upgrade to the blue voter card.

He says the FEO will now embark on City Drives where they will have a lot more hotspots in urban centres

The Supervisor says they have 26 offices open all over the country and they will be targeting urban areas to update voter cards.

He says from personal experience on the last two days of the voter registration drive in September, they had empty voter registration centres in the middle of the heart areas of Suva. Saneem says they will have to employ different strategies to reach to those voters who wish to still upgrade to the blue voter card.

Although it has been announced by the Fijian Elections Office that the green voter card is expired, Saneem reiterates that people can still use the green voter card to vote as long as their name is still on the Voter List.

He says having a blue voter card means you will know your polling venue while having a green voter card means you have to go an extra step to find out where you will be voting and then you will still have to be verified to vote at the polling venue.