The Island
Some public officials, identified to be inefficient with allegations of partisanship towards certain political parties, will not be deployed for elections duty, Elections Secretariat sources said.
Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake has taken this step to ensure much freer and fairer Parliamentary elections on April 8, the sources explained.
They said the commissioner had also decided to ask all Assistant Commissioners of Elections in all the 22 districts to give priority to booking private buses for elections duty. This was to avoid accusations of favouritism against election officials from rival political parties
To intensify the scrutiny at polling stations and counting centres, the sources said the commissioner was considering a proposal to double the number of SPOs and JPOs at each polling station and double the present numbers at counting centers by deploying more officials.
A spokesperson for the Additional Commissioner (Parliamentary) Elections P. M. Siriwardena, meanwhile, said 415,432 voters are eligible to cast their postal votes on March 25 and 26.
He said 61,678 postal vote applications were rejected due inaccuracies.
A senior SLAS Official and an advisor to the Elections Secretariat, Bandula Kulatunga, said all the polling cards would be handed over to postal authorities on March 22 and the delivery that would commence on March 23 would continue till March 31 with a special delivery on Sunday March 28.