SCER uncovers rampant voter registration fraud [Archives:2006/948/Local News]

SANA'A, May 21 ) The Supreme Commission for Elections and Referendums (SCER) announced Sunday that registered voters included 53,000 minors who have not attained the legal voting age.

Dr. Mohamed Al-Sayyani, a SCER member, stated that his commission referred voter registration violations to the prosecutor's office at a news conference held Sunday. Some of the violations were committed as early as 2002 and involved the inclusion into the registry of under-aged minors, in addition to 64,000 cases of repeated names.

When queried about other electoral violations, Al-Sayyani stated that the SCER is still in the process of counting other violations planned to be announced in the coming days. Further, he explained that the SCER has devoted greater time for appeals against alleged election violations and that the SCER will handle any verdicts against electoral violations until September's poll.

Al-Sayyani indicated the SCER received 10,690 requests to add names to voter registration lists and 9,800 requests to delete names from the lists. The result was that voter registration committees added 10,139 new voters and dropped 1,515 voters from the registration list, he added.

Abdu Mohamed Al-Janadi, Media and Awareness department head at the SCER, said that errors are bound to occur in a process administered by 34,000 voter registration and 34,0000 security committees.

On a side note, Al-Janadi praised the electoral awareness of the armed forces. Even though they often transfer from one voting constituency to another due to their line of work, they find the time to register to vote.
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