Electoral Commission calls for respect of ‘cooling off’ period |17 December 2015

It is an offence for people to hang around or remain in the vicinity of a polling station once they have voted and the police have been asked to prevent this from happening.

Representatives of political parties have also been asked to respect the cooling off period.

“It is illegal to remain in the vicinity of a polling station after voting and this should stop,” the chairman of the Electoral Commission Hendrick Gappy said yesterday.
 
This follows reports from some stations that people were campaigning while in the queue and lingering around the polling station after voting.

Mr Gappy said this too is an offence and the Electoral Commission (EC) has called on the police to be on the alert and to ensure any such actions are stopped and that people queuing up to vote, do so quietly and calmly.

Following reports received by the EC that supporters of both parties were not fully respecting the cooling off period, Mr Gappy said they have called on representatives of both parties to talk to their supporters and to respect regulations.

Meanwhile in terms of inconsistencies with regard to election processes and procedures reported from some polling stations during the first round of voting on December 5 which caused voting and subsequently vote counting to drag into the early hours of the morning, Mr Gappy said these are being addressed and polling agents’ roles have been re-emphasised and it is expected that voting and counting of votes will be faster on the main polling day.

With regard to the number of people who will be travelling abroad early over the next three days and who had turned up with their travel documents to vote at the special station at English River early yesterday morning Mr Gappy said the number was more than expected.
 
“A separate table had to be set up to accommodate them,” he said.

He noted that these people the EC did not know their numbers and their names were on the master register only compared to those voters who will be working in essential services.

Meanwhile Mr Gappy noted that 5,457 persons are expected to vote in the first two days of voting in the special stations, the largest part being police officers compared to the first round where the number was a little over 4,100.  

At Ile Perseverance, a little over 2,000 persons qualified to vote from some 3,700 citizens whose names feature on the list. From the number who qualify to vote, there are those who have been registered to vote at English River under essential services  leaving some 1,933 expected to cast their vote at Ile Perseverance, Mr Gappy pointed out.

On the outer islands an estimated 250 persons were expected to cast their votes yesterday and another 150 today on the second day of voting on the outer islands.

On Silhouette 209 people cast their votes yesterday compared to 194 in the first round of voting.

Apart from a large group of 75 people from Mahe who came to cast their votes on Silhouette at around 10am, there were not many people in the queue during the time that the polling station was opened between 9am and 1pm.

Our journalist/photographer who covered voting there described the atmosphere as calm and without incidents.

The last person, a young lady, cast her vote at 1pm.