EC: All election-related admin work complete

All administrative arrangements necessary for the upcoming parliamentary elections are now complete, says Elections Commission (EC).

The EC held its last scheduled press conference regarding preparations for the parliamentary elections, this Thursday afternoon.

Speaking to press, President of EC, Ahmed Shareef said all ballot boxes have now been sent to the atolls and abroad.

The last item left in the agenda, the training of officials who will be posted at the polling station in Trivandrum, India, will be held later this Thursday evening.

“With the Grace of Allah, we have completed all election-related work with perfection. What’s next is polling, vote counting and issuance of results. Meaning all administrative work is now complete,” said Shareef.

He also said that officials will be announcing results of ballot boxes from all polling stations by electoral district as soon as the ballots are counted – as is required by law.

8,631 result sheets will be used for the 501 ballot boxes in an election which 264,442 voters have the right to cast their votes in.

“Result of each ballot which is cast into every ballot box will be announced as soon as the counting is done. The result sheet will be posted at an area with public access,” said Shareef, refuting media reports the commission will not be posting interim results by constituency and not by ballot box – as is normal practice.

“But instead of getting on a podium to announce results by voters of each constituency from each ballot box, we will post it on our website,” clarified Shareef.

He said the EC will hold a press conference to announce results once all ballots are verified.

The law requires EC to announce final results within seven days of polling day.

Shareef said the EC will announce final results of the parliamentary elections within six days by the latest. This means EC will announce interim results on April 8 and final results on April 12 by the latest.

386 candidates will compete for 87 seats at the Parliament on polling day - Saturday.