Voting to begin half an hour earlier on election day

The Elections Commission has announced that voting at the presidential election scheduled for September 2013 will begin half an hour earlier than usual.

President of Elections Commission Fuad Thaufeeg told Sun Online today that the voting will begin at 07:30 and will be closed at 16:00, but people on the queue at 16:00 will still be allowed to vote.

“This was decided because if we start earlier, we also get more time to work. We noticed in past years when we begin at 08:00, people would have already started queuing up. So if we start earlier those people can vote earlier,” he said.

Fuad said that the ballot boxes will be closed when voting is over, and counting will begin 30 minutes later.

He reminded that the deadline had been extended until 7 August, for registration for people voting from a different island than the one they reside in, and said that this opportunity would not be available after this date.

“Only very few people applied for registration in the first two weeks, it’s possible that most people were waiting until the last day. But once the deadline is up, this opportunity will not be given anymore, even if people make this request. We have plenty of work to do, including printing the ballot papers, checking the forms and the ballot papers. We need time,” he said.