Election Monitors Submit Request to Review NEC Documents
Independent election monitors and civil society groups submitted a request to the National Election Committee (NEC) on Friday asking to review post-election voter rolls and Identity Certificates for Elections (ICE) forms in seven provinces in which reports of election irregularities were widespread on July 28. The Situation Room, a committee of civil society bodies that monitored the national election, has asked the NEC to disclose the names of people who voted in these provinces in order to check for cases of double voting, and to disclose details regarding ICE documentation used in some areas to assess the level of fraudulent voting, said Koul Panha, executive director of the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (Comfrel). … Mr. Panha said that Comfrel and other election monitors were currently compiling their findings and will release a quantitative report on suspected irregularities in the coming days. However, without the NEC’s cooperation in reviewing voter names and documentation, a conclusive investigation of election fraud will not be possible, he said. NEC Secretary-General Tep Nytha said Sunday that the organization had been too busy to consider the request for access to documentation from the independent election monitors. … Hang Puthea, executive director of the Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia, said that election monitors were offering an apolitical way for the NEC to bring credibility to the election process. “Whether they [the NEC] has this commission [with the CPP and CNRP] or doesn’t have it, we NGOs have to work our way. We want to solve the technical problems, not the political problem,” he said.
The Cambodia Daily
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/elections/election-monitors-submit-request-to-review-nec-documents-38287/
