October 6, 2004
Ramallah, Palestine

The Public Committee for Elections Monitoring conducted a voter registration monitoring process for Presidential, and Legislative and local councils. That started on September 4, 2004 and ends on Thursday October 7, 2004. Where the committee made several field visits to evaluate the voter registration process. The committee also conducted an opinion poll at the registration centers to include it in its evaluation. The visits were performed for the following reasons:

First, to indicate that the results of voter registration were based on an opinion poll that was performed on October 2 – 4, 2004.

Second, when measure the results for the reasons why citizens didn’t register. The poll indicated that the main reason was due to deteriorating security situation that was the result of the Israeli practices in Jerusalem, West Bank and Gaza. Therefore, the citizens couldn’t participate in the vote registration process because they were not able to make it to the voter registration centers. In Jerusalem, most Palestinians did not register because of the Israeli threats to revoke their ID cards and thus their residency rights. Hence, a large number of Palestinians were not able to register for the elections due to Israeli scare tactics that it practiced in the past several weeks.

Third, the Public Committee for Elections Monitoring has observed that there is a great need for voter registration amendments revision by the Central Elections Committee, and we recommend the following changes:
1. To extend the period of voter registration for another three weeks and to request international observers in the Jerusalem registration centers.
2. The Central Elections Committee must give an allowance of one full day salary for employees who go the centers for registration.
3. The Central Elections Committee must make a revision that would allow the next of kin to register the relative that can’t make to the registration center.
4. The Central Elections Committee must relocate some of the registration centers to women’s rights centers especially in rural areas.
5. The Central Elections Committee must contact the President’s office, PLC and other institutions to set a time line schedule and a deadline for a local election date.
6. The Public Committee for Elections Monitoring observes that there is a need that all civil society and public institutions, labor associations, political parties, etc. to promote the election process and voter registration process in general.


Secretarial
Public Committee for Elections Monitoring