Nearly 100,000 votes rejected in N & E

By R Srivelraja

Election Secretariat sources said 99,335 had been rejected in the Northern and Eastern districts at the 05 August general election.

Accordingly, there were 35,006 rejected votes in the Jaffna district, 17,019 in the Wanni district, 16,838 in the Batticaloa, 16,347 in Digamdulla District and 14,125 in the Trincomalee district.

A total of 744,373 votes were rejected countrywide at the 05 Aug election. The Centre for Monitoring of Election Violence (CMEV) says this is the first time in the history of Sri Lanka that such a large number of votes have got rejected at an election.

Convenor of the CMEV Manjula Gajanayake said that four main factors played a key part in a large number of votes being rejected. They were lack of electoral literacy of the public, few people casting ballots just to exercise rights but not marking ballot as required, the division in the UNP resulting in party supporters refraining to vote or in a dilemma to choose between two symbols and candidates and wrongful marking of ballots.

The total number of rejected votes 744, 373 outnumbered votes the UNP and the JVP led NPP polled. The UNP polled 249,435 votes while JVP led NPP polled 445,998 votes.