THE Solomon Islands Electoral Commission (SIEC) says the first stage of the Biometric Voter Registration process has been a great success, with the new system detecting almost 6000 potentially fraudulent voter registrations.
The SIEC is in the process of finalising the Provisional List of Voters, which has revealed 5923 duplicate registrations.
“One person tried to register nine times. In some cases, people appear to have attempted to use false names and even disguises to register to vote multiple times,” Chief Electoral Officer, Polycarp Haununu said.
“The first stage of BVR has been a great success. We believe that the provisional list is a highly accurate representation of the number of people who are eligible to vote.”
The BVR system uses unique fingerprint and facial recognition data that makes it impossible for anyone to register more than once without being detected.
Some people appear to have attempted to use hats, beards and other disguises to try to do multiple registrations.
“All multiple registration cases will be referred to the relevant Revising Officers,” Mr Haununu said.
“Cases where people have clearly tried to defraud the system will ultimately be referred to the Police.”
The SIEC says if someone is found to have registered more than once, only their first registration will remain on the Provisional List of Voters.
“Some people may have registered twice by mistake, thinking that they were allowed to register in two different constituencies,” Mr Haununu said.
“Each person can only register once. If you have registered in twice your second registration will be subject to an objection from the SIEC.”
All registered voters are reminded that they must check the Provisional List of Voters when it is published in a few weeks’ time.
The Biometric Voter Registration system was brought in to clean up the list of voters that contained a large number of outdated, fraudulent and duplicate registrations.
The system thus successfully produced a fair and accurate list that the SIEC says represents 84% of the total eligible voter population
