The Office of the Electoral Commission is not releasing any results of the recount of votes for all districts or constituencies until the counting is completed.
The Samoa Observer quotes the Electoral Commissioner, Faimalōmatumua Mathew Lemisio saying, “We wanted the results to be released once it’s counted, however if we release the results early, this will trigger an early election petition by candidates and by the time the court cases are being heard, we are still counting the other constituencies.”
Faimalomatumus has decided however to release the official results to candidates and scrutineers only.
“This is not a new process,” he said, “and it could take a week for it to be finalized.”
The process has scrutineers and the Office of the Electoral Commission scrutinizing the electoral roll for each constituency first before votes are counted.
Any discrepancy should be identified against the electoral rolls just checked
Faimalomatumua has confirmed that the writ from the Head of State is that the count must be completed by 26 April 2021.
“But we do not want to rush the counting especially with the tight result from last Friday’s preliminary count,” he said.
The slow process has angered some voters, suspicious that something untoward was in the works.
As a result, the OEC facebook page has been closed temporarily.
This is due to rude and angry comments posted on the page against the staff.
