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Protect the ballot of Lankan expats, says PAFFREL
By N.Dilshath Banu
Elections monitoring group PAFFREL has called for swift and fool-proof methods to prevent poll riggers and impostors from stealing the ballots of some 2.2 million Sri Lankans living abroad.

PAFFREL chief Kingsley Rodrigo said his organisation had been demanding that migrant workers and Sri Lankans living overseas should be allowed to cast their votes in special booths set up in Sri Lanka missions abroad to ensure their democratic rights and to prevent their votes being used by someone else.

According to PAFFREL statistics, of the 2.2 million Sri Lankan expatriate voters, 1.5 million are migrant workers. About 600,000 voters are domiciled in foreign countries but their names are still in the voting list because their family members renew their names on the voters’ registration list distributed by the Grama Niladaris.

Mr. Rodrigo said the names of the people who had not come to Sri Lanka for a long time should be deleted from the voters’ list while the migrant workers should be allowed to vote either by post or by visiting the Sri Lankan missions. He said that PAFFREL had also made these proposals to the Parliamentary Select Committee on elections reforms in 2003.

According to PAFFREL’s proposals, airport authorities would be required by law to submit particulars of migrants to the Election Commission periodically.
Mr. Rodrigo said PAFFREL was engaged in a research on migrant voters and would submit a report to the Elections Commissioner.

Meanwhile, Labour Minister Athauda Seneviratne said the government was also in favour of the proposal to allow migrant workers to use their franchise, but added a viable mechanism should be worked out before it was implemented.

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