People check for their names on the voter list at Phsar Doeum Thkov commune in the capital’s Chamkarmon district in October. Heng Chivoan
The National Election Committee (NEC) is scheduled to post the voter list publicly in January in communes across the country following the completion of the verification and new voter registration drives.
Currently, the NEC is reviewing and correcting the data on the voter list and finalising the list of deleted names.
NEC spokesman Som Sorida told The Post on December 15 that the public posting of the lists would allow people to review them and file complaints or requests for corrections before the NEC validated them for use in the 5th mandate of commune council elections in June.
He said the public posting of the new voter list and the list of deletions must be done simultaneously for a period of 10 days from January 3 onwards. Citizens are welcome to go to their commune halls to check their names and make sure they are properly registered.
According to Sorida, if someone finds that their name is on the deleted list when it should not be, they have the right to appeal it and get their name put back on the voter list.
“After settling all complaints and corrections regarding the new voter list and deletion list at the Constitutional Council, the NEC will then release the official validated voter list on February 12, 2022,” he said.
Sam Sokuntheamy, executive director of the Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (NICFEC), stated his organisation will not send observers to review the lists as it had already sent out observers during the registration and verification process that ended in November.
“Once the NEC declares the list validated, people cannot complain or object further because they were given a lot of time to do so already,” he said.
According to Sokuntheamy, if people do not have their names on the voter list after the NEC officially validates them, they will not be able to vote in the 2022 commune elections and will have to wait to correct it when the NEC registers new voters again at the end of 2022 in the run-up to the 2023 general election.
According to the NEC’s report, there are a total of 9,205,743 people registered on the 2021 voter list. There are 7,942 newly registered names and 9,627 names removed from the list along with 3,505 people who had their names corrected and 4,166 people who relocated to new communes.
