Voters who cast advance ballots at three polling stations in Magway region have been asked to repeat the process after local officials rejected their ballots over a labelling error.
The polling stations, in Natmauk city’s Aung San quarter and the villages of Wayaw and Gway Gon in Yesagyo township, had been using ballots with the incorrect address printed on them, officials said.
During advance voting on Monday, officials noticed that 50 ballots used at the Aung San quarter polling station in Natmauk showed that they were from Myothit township, even though the envelopes they were in were correctly labelled.
Because of the error, a decision was made to cancel ballots already cast and give local constituents a chance to vote again.
“We discussed the problem with the affected parties and negotiated with them over how to handle it,” Khin Maung Nwe, the president of the Natmauk township election commission, told Myanmar Now.
On Tuesday, the day after the error was discovered, the polling station was reopened and voters were allowed to vote again, as the candidates demanded.
The problem was addressed in the same way in Wayaw and Gway Gon villages in Yesagyo township, according to Myint Aung, the president of the township’s election commission.
“For the benefit of the voters and the people, we sealed the ballot box in front of the parties and the negotiation committee. Then we asked voters to vote again,” he said.
It was unclear what caused the error, but some candidates suspected that it was a result of deliberate tampering.
“We took it as corruption,” said Lwin Myint Oo, a candidate from Yesagyo township for the ruling National League for Democracy.
The Union Election Commission has allowed voters aged 60 or over to vote in advance from October 29 to November 5.
