Supreme Court election case: Court hears three witnesses

Supreme Court has heard three witnesses presented by Jumhoory Party (JP) today, in the case filed by JP, asking to annul the results of the first round of the presidential elections.

The first witness said that the elections officials at the polling station had told him that he had already cast his vote. The witness explained that his name in the voters’ list was already marked as ‘voted’, but said that the officials had allowed him to vote, following discussion among themselves.

The second witness stated that elections officials had told him that he was not on the voters’ list, although, according to the witness, he was registered to vote under his permanent address and had not changed his registration.

When Judge Adam Mohamed Abdulla had asked if the officials had then allowed him to vote, he said the officials had not.

In a case filed by the Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) in Supreme Court before the September 7th election, the court had ordered the Elections Commission to allow all voters to vote from their permanent addresses, if they so wish.

The third witness was an elections official who was in-charge of a ballot box on polling day. The witness stated that, due to issues with the Commission BPRS system on polling day, the voters’ who had cast their ballot had to be marked on the voters’ list, as instructed by the Elections Commission during their training.

However, the witness said that the issues with the BPRS system was resolved around 10:00 a.m. and that when they tried to enter the details of five individuals, who had arrived on the island to vote, the system had indicated that those 5 people had already cast their votes in another location, which was just 10 minutes away.