IMNA : In Thanphyuzayart Township and Moulmein Township, Mon State, resents have reported multiple instances of votes being invalidated after mistakes are made by polling station staff.
Polling station staffs have misinformed eligible voters that a requisite signature at the bottom of the ballot was not necessary, despite repeated attempts by the voters to get a signature. As a result, after voting, another staff member would declare their ballot invalid as it had no signature.
At polling stations in Thnaphyuzayart Township, staff are grouped at three stations that oversee the election process. At the 1st station the voter receives their ballot that is specifically marked with their ID number, at the 2nd, a staff member checks the filled out ballot for a correct format – which means both a vote for one of the local parties, and the signature of the polling station officer. Ballots that have both are then brought to the 3rd station where they are deposited in the ballot box.
Voters who have found that their ballot lacked the signature of the polling station officer, requested the officer to sign the ballot before they filled it out. They reported that the officer would reply that he was too busy and that the voter should wait. After waiting voters would request again, and were told that it wasn’t a problem and that they could just proceed without the signature.
“I went to vote at the polling station at noon today,” explained one wood-be voter from Thanphyuzayart Town. “I asked the polling booth officer to sign my ballot and they said to wait because they were busy. They then told me to just make my check mark for whoever I liked. But they then made my vote invalid.”
A polling station observer in Moulmein Town, from an unidentified ethnic party commented that because polling booth officers have to sign so many ballots, they end up missing some and so they end up invalidated.
In another apparent case of organizational mistake, some voters have found themselves invalidated before they even receive a ballot.
According to a member of the AMDP that was also observing the election process at a station in Moulmein Town, “Some people returned back home without making any sign on a ballot. They [polling station authorities] didn’t allow them to vote because they said them that these people – after checking families list, birth lists and also IDs – [have no ballot] as none have their ID number it.”
