KEY POINTS:
PORT MORESBY - Elvis Presley is living in Papua New Guinea's Highlands, ready to vote in the country's national elections, if the region's new electoral rolls are anything to go by.
PNG's electoral officials are concerned that the rolls in the five Highlands provinces are stacked with false names.
Names on registration forms include (the late) Elvis Presley, crooner Tom Jones and royalty -- including the King and Queen, Electoral Commissioner Andrew Trawen said.
Ghost names and double entries were rife and voter registrations were up to 33 per cent above the estimated number of eligible voters, he said.
With PNG's national election set to start on June 30, the country's Electoral Commission is busy co-ordinating the update and correction of corrupted and inflated electoral rolls.
But the same old rorts and corruptions are surfacing in the Highlands, along with new twists such as Elvis impersonators.
Trawen said certain politicians in the "troublesome region" were behind the practice of ghost names and double entries on the voter rolls.
He warned them to cease the practice or face a declaration of failed elections.
The commissioner also warned he would not hesitate to cancel polling in electorates where voting was marred by electoral manipulation, intimidation and violence using guns.
In the 2002 election, widespread violence, intimidation and electoral fraud occurred in the Highlands, including in the Southern Highlands Province where six polls out of nine were declared invalid.
This time round the Electoral Commission was applying due diligence before acceptable figures of eligible voters were finalised, Trawen said.
Regions other than the Highlands were not coming up with inflated lists and the rolls for coastal and islands provinces were almost completed, he said.
- AAP
