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| Near 300,000 eligible Tamil citizens are not registered as voters |
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| -Mano Ganesan writes to Election commissioner |
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(Lanka-e-News, May 29, 2010, 1.35PM) Near 300,000 eligible Tamil citizens are not registered as voters in the electoral registers held by Election Commissioner. Elections department should take additional efforts and implement novel methods outside the traditional revision processes to correct this under registration before any Electoral reforms. No reforms will be complete unless it incorporates the fair and free voter registration process said DPF leader Mano Ganesan in his urgent letter to Elections commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake. DPF media communiqué released to media says further that,
Large numbers of legally eligible members of Tamil community are not registered as voters. This matter is a long standing issue faced by Tamil people live in the districts of Colombo, Gampaha, Kalutara, Nuwara Eliya, Kandy, Matale, Ratnapura, Kegalle, Badulla and Puttalam. You used the 2008 registers for the elections held this year. The estimated national population in year 2008 is 20,217,000. The registered voters in 2008 are 14,088,500. This is 69% against the population count. This is not anyway reflected among the Tamil community living in the above southern districts. Survey done by us has found that approximately 300,000 eligible Tamil speaking plantation workers and urban residents are being deprived of their basic voting rights. We waited all these years until the war is over. Current post war era demands free and fair and equitable democratic representation for the Tamil community at all legislative tiers. |
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Your traditional methods used in the electoral register revision processes have failed. Performances of certain officials and enumerators in this process are not satisfactory. I also accept that the lukewarm attitude of the people themselves are also is a reason here. But however I request you to implement more practical methods outside your traditional process to correct this serious shortcoming.
We are aware that voter numbers in certain districts in the north and east are over registered. Voter lists used for the elections currently in the territories which were held by LTTE until recently are not updated. We are aware that your department is planning to regularize the statistics in the north and some area of the east. But however no progress is visible on the issue of under registration of prospective Tamil voters in the southern districts. This tends to become more sensitive issue in the context of the proposed electoral reforms. Therefore we are calling for your urgent attention for rapid action plan to undo this irregularity before any electoral reforms take place. |
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