Fiji’s total registered voter numbers decreased by nearly one percent in seven weeks after the Fijian Elections Office carried out two rounds of verification exercise during which deceased and disqualified voters were removed from the National Register of Voters.
To date, the number of registered voters stands at 658,310 compared to 664,481 as of 31 December 2021 following two verification exercises held between 4 October 2021 and 4 February 2022 with the assistance of the turaga ni koro‘s, district advisory councilors, and records kept with the Births, Deaths, and Marriage (BDM) office.
In the first round of verification held between 4 October and 19 November, the FEO sent out 1929 provisional voter lists to TNKs and DAC to verify the voter lists against the people who are currently residing in their areas and those who have moved as well as those who have died since the last election.
“In total 1128 voter lists came back. When we receive the voter lists, we verified it with the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registry, particularly those who have been reported as deceased. In total, we identified the 2041 voters reported deceased in the BDM registry, and therefore, they were removed from the National Register of Voters,” Supervisor of Elections Mohammed Saneem said.
The second round of verification was held between 17 January and 4 February this year during which the FEO sent out 1084 provisional voter lists for verification. Thereafter, via the same verification means, removed 6,920 voters from the NRV.
The FEO will use the latest provisional voter list during the forthcoming voter registration drive scheduled to start this Saturday.
“Going forward, there will be another round of provisional voter list verification that we will conduct at the end of the nationwide voter registration drive and the KYE (Know Your Election) campaign and this will most likely be done during the writ period. Our attention at all times is to ensure that the voter list is current, correct, and as accurate as possible.”
The next voter registration drive will run from Saturday, 26 February to 2 April 2022.
The schedules for the different divisions are as follows (extracted from FEO social media platform):
1. Central Division: https://www.feo.org.fj/kye-nrd-schedule-central_final/
2. Western Division: https://www.feo.org.fj/kye-nrd-schedule-western_final/
3. Northern Division: https://www.feo.org.fj/nrd-schedule-northern_final/
4. Eastern Division: https://www.feo.org.fj/nrd-schedule-eastern_final/
