Police sent names of 53,594 who did not vote
THE Police Chief and Attorney-general will soon receive a list from the Election Registrar of the 53,594 voters who didn’t show up to vote last Sunday.
Under the law, it is compulsory to vote, and abstainers should be prosecuted; however this is considered highly unlikely, given the logistic headache of prosecuting so many people.
Nonetheless, Elections Registrar Lazaros Savvides said he would faithfully implement the law, which states that failing to vote is illegal, and provide the police and Legal Services with the list.
Similar threats were made following the last municipal elections and the parliamentary ones before that, but no prosecutions took place.
As Savvides explained yesterday, the penalty involves up to a €342 [£200] fine, though the last time any prosecutions took place was after the 1998 presidential elections.
He admitted that it was impossible to prosecute more than 50,000 voters, but added that there was a bill in the works, which would either make voting voluntary or keep it compulsory, but with abstainers punishable with on the spot fines.
Attorney-general Petros Clerides’ final decision on what course of action to take will be announced within the next few days.
2008 Presidential Elections: first round in numbers
l 515,994 members of public were registered to vote; out of whom 390 were Turkish Cypriot
l A total of 462,847 people voted in the first round of the elections, a percentage of 89.62 per cent. There was a slight decrease from 2003’s presidential elections (90.55 per cent)
l 10.38 per cent of voters abstained
l 1.68 per cent of votes were void and 0.95 per cent of the electorate cast blank votes
l 97.36 per cent of the votes were valid
l Ioannis Kasoulides secured 150,996 votes, 33.51 per cent of the public’s vote
l Demetris Christofias secured 150,016 votes (33.29 per cent)
l Tassos Papadopoulos received 143,249 votes (31.79 per cent)
l Marios Matsakis secured 3,460 votes (0.77 per cent)
(Source: Cyprus Mail)
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