ELECTION RE-COUNT GONE WRONG ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// The Court ordered Recount of the Madang By-Election seems to have gone all wrong. National Court of Madang ordered the recount on 7th August 2014 upholding 3rd placed candidate Peter Yamas petition disputing the Minister of Petroleum and Member of Madang Nixon Dubans election win. Peter Yama successfully convinced the court that there were serious errors and omissions by the Electoral Commission during the polling and counting period. In his ruling the Judge Justice Sakora outlined the seven errors and omissions. warranting a recount. 1) There was lack of security during polling, transportation of ballot boxes and securing of ballot boxes at the Jomba police station; 2) The returning officer refused to include the 6116 marked ballot papers found at the grave yard when the petitioner and other candidates went to present their grievance to the returning officer; 3) There were unused ballot papers found in the assistant returning officers hired vehicle which were found by the petitioner with a polling officer near the Electoral Commission office, but he is no longer polling officer; 4) The returning officer and the assistant returning officer defied lawful instructions from Andrew Trawen, who is the Chief Electoral Commissioner, in his letter dated December 16, 2013, for them not to take part in the quality check and elimination process when 16 candidates signed a petition asking the Chief Electoral Commissioner regarding impropriety during the counting process; 5) Information found in form 66A and 66B were incomplete. 6) There was a re-polling at two wards , ward 4 and ward 21 at Ambenob local level government area but those figures were not made available to the court by the returning officer; and that 7) The declaration of Nixon Duban was done in haste and candidates and members of the public were not informed when the declaration was made. The Judge ordered that 6,116 ballot-papers discovered by Yama at his mothers grave site in the public cemetery be included in the recount and the result be returned to the National Court by 2nd September 2014. The recount officially commenced on Tuesday 19th August 2014, of the eighteen candidates that contested the By-Election only three have registered to participate in the recount, the incumbent Nixon Duban, runner up Bryan Kramer and Peter Yama. From the results of the previous count in 2013 Nixon Duban was declared the winner after 14th exclusion, polling 18,226 votes. The three other remaining candidates included Bryan Kramer in second place polling 7,805 votes, Yama in 3rd Place on 5,640 and Stanley Pil in fourth place on 4,215 votes. The total ballot-papers cast during the By-Election was 40,419, informal votes 1,346 and total allowable ballot-papers 39,073. Following the declaration of Mr. Duban all the ballot-papers were stored in seven ballot-boxes. 1st Nixon Duban (x2) 18,266 2nd Bryan Kramer (x1) 7,805 3rd Peter Yama (x1) 5,640 4th Stanley Pil (x1) 4,215 Exhausted Ballot-papers (x1) 3,187 Informal Ballot-Papers (x1) 1,346 The recount of the same boxes have now revealed serious discrepancies or differences in the results. Recount / Diff 1st Nixon Duban 11,661 -6565 2nd Bryan Kramer 7,807 +2 3rd Peter Yama 7,605 +1965 4th Stanley Pil 4,213 -2 Exhausted Ballot-papers 3,187 +1,022 Informal Ballot-Papers 1,346 Nil Scrutineers in the Counting centre have reported that the ballot-boxes that produced significant discrepancies from the recount were not secured with inner seals. While the recount results from ballot-boxes that were secured with both inner and outer seals, remained relatively the same. Even the 6,116 ballot-papers discovered by Mr. Yama at his mothers grave produced a different total when manually counted, 6,370. This brings the total discovered ballot-papers during the recount including those discovered by Mr. Yama at the Cemetery to 9,357. Exhausted Ballot-box +1,022 Peter Yamas Ballot-box +1,965 Cemetery Ballot-Papers - 6,370 Total new ballot-papers 9,357 A further concern is the unexplained difference in Mr. Dubans votes, his total has now been considerably reduced from 18,226 to only 11,661. (less 6,565 votes) In addition, ballot-papers discovered during the recount were overwhelming marked in favour of Mr. Yama. This has resulted in Mr. Yamas primary vote being increased from 4,440 to 10,358. Prior to the recount Mr. Dubans total votes was 18,226 and Mr. Yamas only 5,640 a difference of 12,586 votes. This difference has now been significantly reduced to only a few 100 votes with the preference votes still to be considered. Mr Yama is now positioned to finish in first place after the final results of the recount. The ballot-papers in Duban and Kramers ballot-box have been manually counted but yet to be processed under the electronic counting system. Counting was suspended on Saturday after Dubans scrutineers refused to make an appearance at the counting centre. Re-count will resume on Monday 1st September 2014. Once the remaining ballot-papers are processed the total primary votes (1 vote) will be established. The Counting officials will then conduct a final quality check or reconcile each candidates ballot-box before commencing the elimination process. /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Post Analysis Taking into consideration all these discrepancies indicates beyond doubt that the ballot-boxes without the inner seals have been tampered with or compromised prior to the recount. Following the polling in 2013 Madang By-Election I attended a meeting with the former Returning Officer (RO) and other candidates at the Star International Hotel. I petitioned the RO to produce the unused ballot-papers, that they be accounted for and reconciled before the Counting to avoid these exact issues from occurring. I also petitioned the RO on three separate occasions to provide the serial number range, opening & closing serial numbers at each polling location from the presiding officers (PO) journals. He refused to do so, even after serving him written instructions from the Electoral Commissioner. I alleged in my election petition that Mr. Duban inserted pre-marked ballot-papers during the transportation of the ballot-boxes at the time of polling and withdrew legitimate ballot-papers to ensure the tally still reconciled. The evidence of which was the unexplained 10,000+ ballot-papers marked in the same handwriting in favour of Mr. Duban. It seems the same illegal practice may have occurred prior to the recount. Where the discovered ballot-papers are unused ballot-papers from the polling yet to be accounted for that were illegally marked and inserted into the ballot-boxes following the declaration of Mr. Duban to affect the result of the recount. The only means to providing the evidence confirming whether the discovered ballot-papers are legitimate is cross referencing their serial numbers against the serial number range recorded in the POs journals. This should include cross checking the initials on the back of each ballot-paper. If illegitimate the serial number of ballot-papers will fall outside the range recorded in the POs journals. Unfortunately after repeated requests to the Electoral Commission to produce the journals the information is yet to be provided.
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 08:10:53 +0000
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