DILI, 24 february 2022 (TATOLI) – The Technical Secretariat for Electoral Administration (STAE) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation (MNEC) continue preparations for presidential elections in Australia .
The Director-General of STAE, Acilino Branco, said that this electoral body informed the MNEC yesterday of the desire to install several polling centers in Australia according to the latest update of the STAE database.
The official also recalled that, although STAE carried out the voter registration in Australia between 2017 and 2018, the same did not happen this year.
“We were prevented from proceeding with the registration due to the confinement imposed by the Government of Canberra, even though our Timorese voters have the electoral card, a document that gives them the possibility to exercise their right to vote”, Acilino told Tatoli, in Caicoli, Dili.
According to the official, the updating of the database aims to speed up in terms of effectiveness the cards of voters that for extra reasons became unusable.
STAE officially registered 859,613 unreadable voters throughout the national territory and in the diaspora, of which 852,500 were registered nationally and 7,113 abroad.
According to the updated Timorese voter numbers in Australia, STAE registered 1,492 voters, 785 of which are men and 707 are women.
Australia has voting centers in the cities of Darwin, Sydney and Melbourne.
Journalist: Domingos Piedade Freitas
Editor: Maria Auxiliadora/Rafy Belo
Translator: Camilio de Sousa
