Early Voting for Security forces

According to Presidential decision No. 124 of 2010 on the voting of security forces for Local Council Elections, security personnel are allowed to early vote to secure the electoral process on the official elections day. To this end, the CEC opened today 11 centers in the main cities across the West Bank.

Early voting procedures apply to the localities where the number of registered security personnel exceeds 150. This represents 40% of the total security personnel whereas the remaining members who are not included in the early voting list will be subject to the normal voting procedures on the official E-day. The CEC wishes to emphasize that if a security member registered for early voting did not cast his/her vote on the early voting day, he/she will not be allowed to do so on the official polling day as his/her name will be removed from the voters list.

The list of registered security personnel is available in polling stations. At the end of polling day, Ballot boxes will be sealed with plastic locks and kept inside polling centers. Seals numbers will be recorded onto a special storage form to be later examined during the counting process. Lists agents and observers are allowed to take note of the seals numbers or to take turns in safeguarding the storage rooms to ensure appropriateness of procedures.

The counting of votes will commence in conjunction with the official counting process at the end of the official polling day, i.e. Saturday, October 20th in all polling centers.

To ensure transparency and integrity of elections, the CEC accredited more than 4600 party representatives, 1890 local observer, 550 journalist and 130 international observer and guest.

A new regulation will be put in effect for the first time during this election which prohibits voters from bringing cell phones or cameras inside polling cabinets. Voters will be requested to hand over such belongings to the station officer until the end of polling process.

In another context, today marks the end of electoral campaigning activities which lasted for 13 days as from October 6th. Any campaigning activates after this date is considered a breach to the electoral campaigning regulations and candidates will be subject to legal accountability.

Moreover, today is the last day of nomination for the 2012 complementary local elections. CEC staff will commence as of tomorrow processing of the nomination applications. Once the preliminary list of candidates is officially approved, it will be published in the localities for three days to enable voters to object to the nomination of any candidate or list. The list will also be available through CEC webpage: www.elections.ps.