The first series of workshops for the Electronic Voter Registration (EVR) was conducted today at the Elections Office in Suva.

The training was conducted by experts from CODE Inc Corporation of Canada. The company was selected from 11 proposals received by the Fijian Government to conduct the registration exercise.

While addressing the Team Leaders, the Acting Prime Minister and Attorney General and Justice Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum reminded them that their responsibility is vital towards the efficiency of the voter registration process.

“You have been selected purely on merit as trainers, you will be responsible for the proper registration of 660,000 Fiji voters within the duration of 8 weeks throughout Fiji”, Minister Sayed-Khaiyum said.

He reminded trainers that Government would not want to see a repeat of flaws of the past elections.

“Any flaws will undermine the credibility of whichever Government is elected. It is critical that when you are trained today you pass on such ethics,” he said.

Experts from CODE Corporation of Canada were able to train the team leaders on how to operate the electronic voting kit which includes the filling out of appropriate forms, picture taken through web camera, identification of thumb print and the printing out of identification cards.

Trainers will be trained for approximately 3 weeks before they are deployed to Voter Registration Centers (VRC) to conduct training on the selected personnel.

During registration, 3 personnel are required to operate the voting kits in registration centers. People are encouraged to report to the VRC close to them for registration. Registration of one person will not take more than three minutes. This identification card will be presented to the polling station during election in 2014.

The Prime Minister Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama will launch the actual voter registration period at the Civic Center in Suva on July 3^rd.