Lagos — THE situation at a polling booth located at a primary school close to Girls High School, Azuiyiokwu, Abakiliki during last Saturday's presidential and National Assembly election was like a family affair. At the end of polling for the day, the presiding officer at the polling centre had handed over a heap of thumb-printed ballot papers to PDP agents to " help me count them". Two policemen who were on duty watched indifferently as the drama went on. The polling officer's explanation for his very strange action was that he did not want to waste time counting the ballots papers alone, as he did during the previous week's gubernatorial and House of Assembly elections. Earlier on, many voters at the same polling booth were disenfranchised by these same polling officials.
Voters who wanted to vote for their various presidential candidates were frustrated when they were told by the presiding officer and the polling clerk that they had exhausted ballot papers for the presidential poll. When queried on why he had exhausted his stock of ballot papers for the presidential poll, the presiding officer said the polling centre was only allocated 300 ballot papers for the presidential contest; 300 for the senatorial poll and only 100 for the House of Representatives election. He further stated that the number of registered voters at the polling booth was 460.
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