As of July 31, 2022, 123,889 voters have yet to update to the new blue voter cards. Supervisor of Elections Mohammed Saneem, in a press conference yesterday, said this made up approximately 18 per cent of the entire list of voters.

He said the Fijian Elections Office had provided voter services directly to 417,656 Fijians since October 3, 2021.

“In the Nationwide Voter Regstration Drive earlier this year, more than 200,000 Fijians accessed FEO services including new registration and the current number of voters stands at 686,076 as at 30 June 2022,” Mr Saneem said.

“In the month of July, the FEO has carried out extensive voter list verification and cleansing.”

“As a direct result of the third round of Voter List verification by Turaga-Ni-Koro’s and District Advisory Councillors and through secondary verification from Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages, the FEO has removed 7912 voters who have been reported deceased.”

In the latest Nationwide Voter Registration Drive, as of Tuesday night, Mr Saneem said they had recorded 619 new registrations and served 3282 voters, mostly from the rural areas.

He said FEO teams were also conducting short refresher courses on how to vote.

Voter Card Upgrade Bonanza

To generate greater interest, the FEO also announced a grand bonanza of $10,000 for every voter who participated in the current registration drive.

Mr Saneem said this would see 100 lucky voters win $100 at the end of the drive.

“So, while you upgrade to the latest voter card, you also go into the draw for some extra cash. Schedules for the drive are published in the newspapers and on the FEO Facebook page. We have communicated directly to the relevant village heads about our schedules of arrival.”

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