26 January 2010 07:24 am
The Commissioner of Elections decided this morning to allow Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) who do not have National ID cards to use their special IDP identity cards produced by the Army or Police to cast their vote, Advisor to the Elections Commissioner Bandula Kulatunga told Daily Mirror online.
“At 10.30 this morning the Elections Commissioner decided to allow IDP’s to vote with their IDP identity cards provided by the Police or Army. But it had to have their photograph on it as well,” Kulatunga said.
According to him this decision was taken by the Elections Commissioner as a large number of IDP’s at the Manik Farm did not have an accepted form of identification.
Kulatunga said that it was given as a solution for the many people that came to vote with their temporary identity cards since they wanted to avoid vote rigging. Kulatunga said that it was compulsory to have a picture of the person in these newly approved IDP identity cards.