NEC Races to Finish Voter List

Understaffed and slightly be­hind schedule, the National Elec­tion Committee Computer Cen­ter is working around the clock to produce the final list of voters be­fore the July 26 elections, the center’s director said.

In the last three weeks, the center has entered 1.56 million voters into the computer, dir­ector Chea Sok Huor said Mon­day.

The staff now has about five weeks to enter at least 4 million more names, proofread the list, run checks for multiple registration and print the final voter list, he said.

“They want the lists to all the provinces on the 23rd of July,” Chea Sok Huor said. “We have a long way to go.”

To deliver the list on time, the center’s staff of about 300 has been working three shifts around the clock with a goal of entering 150,000 names a day, he said.

Chea Sok Huor said for the first few weeks, only about 40,000 names were entered per shift. But an AusAID donation of six more computers allowed them to raise the rate to 48,000 per shift.

However, the center is still short about 20 proofreaders, who are to check printouts of the en­tered names against registration stubs from each polling place, he said.

Because the computer center will produce the final, permanent list of voters, security is a concern—so much so that NEC Vice President Kassie Neou refused to allow a photograph of the computer workers.

“If we allow a photo, the opposition will say there is not enough security and how can we guarantee there is no tampering,” he said.

Another security issue will be checking to make sure people have not registered to vote in multiple polling places.

Computer center officials initially said that the computer program would automatically reject any name that was already in the computer, making it almost im­possible to double-register unless under an assumed name with forged identification.

But Chea Sok Huor said Mon­day that kind of system is un­workable. He said the center would run checks on each pro­v­ince after they are typed in to weed out double names.

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