By Staff Reporters/
Apia, Samoa – 09 September 2025: The Electoral Commissioner, Toleafoa Tuiafelolo John Stanley has confirmed that no official complaint has been lodged with police yet over alleged election inconsistencies.
He said if there were any, then the law is the next step but to date, no official complaints have been filed.
Central to some of the media queries was a story published by the Samoa Observer newspaper that four OEC staff under investigation by police and a FAST candidate that entered the premises where the votes were being counted.
“Leave that to me,” Toleafoa told the media.
He also confirmed that the FAST Party Secretary, Va’aaoao Alofipo and the Safata 2 candidate Tuia Pua Letoa were granted permission to enter the gym.
Toleafoa said he went out to the office and spoke with Vaaaoao who was concerned about the security of the ballot boxes, and Tuia was inside the gym speaking with one of the staff over an issue with Safata 2 results.
“I have the discretion as the Electoral Commissioner to decide and I also know where to draw the line and the candidates did not cross that line,” he said.
As for other alleged issues including how the 20 invalid votes came about, he confirmed that the votes had been deemed invalid.
He pointed to the failure of the electoral officers who allowed the 20 v0ters to cast their votes when they knew these voters had not registered for pre-polling.
Human error and plain stupidity
Toleafoa pointed to human error and failure for many of the issues that have been raised at the ballot booths during the elections.
The IT person, polling officer, Assistant Electoral Officer and Electoral officer assigned to each polling booth, have been trained and shown what to do and was required of them.
Of the 20 unregistered voters who were allowed to vote at Aana 2, Toleafoa said, strictly, that should not have happened.
“It shouldn’t have gone past the IT officer with the tablet (with voter’s names), who was stupid; it came to the polling officer…..stupid; then the AEO, stupid…that’s why these have happened. We never instructed them to do these stupid things,” said a visibly angry Toleafoa.
“The first time, the voters came in and they were not registered, they should have said sorry you have not registered and show them out the door. So we are looking closely, if there is an affinity between these officers and the voters so we can charge them under the Act,” said Toleafoa.
He also explained that some of the inconsistencies that delayed the posting of results was the failure of some Electoral Officers (EOs) to send the summary of the preliminary results to the OEC headquarters. Instead, they placed them inside the ballot boxes then sealed them. By law, once the ballot is sealed, they cannot be opened until the official count.
Despite media reports on inconsistencies stemming the elections, the Electoral Commissioner has confirmed that no charges have yet been filed with the police.
