LOIKAW-----The election sub-commission from Demawso Township, Kayah State, decided that 66 elder voters must cast advance votes again due to wrongful ballot papers at the Okay polling station in Demawso Township, Kayah State.
When the village election sub-commission took the ballot papers from the Demawso Township election sub-commission for Okay village, the Township election sub-commission mistakenly issued the ballot papers.
The village authorities went to township election sub-commission and swapped with the correct ones, said Chairman Khun Tun Win from Okay village election sub-commission.
The candidate of the Kayah State Democratic Party (KySDP) that will represent No.6 Constituency for an upper house seat said that the township election sub-commission made a mistake on issuing wrongful ballot papers at the No.6 constituency and No.7 constituency. The 66 elders had casted advance votes on the wrongful ballot papers. Thus leading to temporary suspension of the early voting system.
“ The township election sub-commission designated those wrongful advance votes as spoiled. We cannot accept it so we held a discussion about wrongful ballot papers with candidates from other political parties and decided to inform the 66 elderly voters to again give their advance votes,” said KySDP’s candidate.
Likewise, the KySDP complained that the procedures some Ward Election sub-commission were doing at the polling station of Lawshamma Ward in Loikaw, Kayah State, were deemed controversial.
The chairman of Township election sub-commission visited the polling station for inspection on November 2nd and instructed its members to only give necessary help to elderly voters.
The warning came after the complaint that some sub-commission members from the ward were standing near the secret ballot boxes and helping voters put their ballot papers into envelopes, seal the envelopes and put them into the ballot boxes.
Lawdhamma Ward is mostly inhabited by migrants from mainland. In the past, it had most members of the Union Solidarity and Development Party and the National League for Democracy.
Loikaw Township has 81 polling stations and 100,372 eligible voters.
