Returning and Presiding Officers Train for Election Day Duties

For many voters, this Election Day will be their first time voting for a U.D.P. candidate in several constituencies where there are multiple red boxes on the ballot paper. On March twelfth, this might cause some confusion about which red box to mark. However, Chief Elections Officer Josephine Tamai assures us that each candidate has a specific number assigned to them. And if you’re unsure and make a mistake, don’t worry, you can request a new ballot paper.

 

Josephine Tamai, Chief Elections Officer

“ I want to emphasize that at all times, it’s only one seat. So, persons can only mark the X beside one candidate. If you mark your X beside more than one candidate, your ballot paper will be rejected.  So, you have to vote for one. No more and no less. But if there’s an error, and I would imagine there would be, especially where people have visual challenges and so forth, and their alignments aren’t, you know, in sync, so they might mark the X beside the wrong red.”

 

Marion Ali

“Can they ask for a new ballot or is it with a pencil that has an eraser on it that they can erase?”

 

Josephine Tamai

“No. What we do is we utilize indelible pencils. And so it does not have an eraser. You cannot remove the mark from there. But when a voter goes into the polling station, if that voter makes a mistake on the ballot paper, that voter would need to return that ballot to the presiding officer, inform the presiding officer that the ballot is spoiled. They will give the ballot back to the presiding officer. Who will cancel that spoiled ballot paper. The presiding officer will retain that ballot paper and re issue and re and issue a new ballot paper to that voter.”

 

Marion Ali

“ And destroy the spoiled ballot in front of the voter?”

 

Josephine Tamai

“ No, it would not be destroyed. They have a separate envelope that they will put that and that will be marked cancelled because a ballot, a spoiled ballot paper does not go into the ballot box. And so I know that sometimes people confuse what is a spoiled ballot paper with what is a rejected ballot paper. A spoiled ballot paper is a ballot paper whereby the voter makes an error during polling, returns that ballot paper, and they are issued with a new ballot. When it comes to a rejected ballot, no. That is a ballot paper that is inside of the box and when it is being counted. So at that time, at counting, The returning officer will decide if the ballot is a rejected ballot.”