GEIS-新闻详情

50,000 public servants to be appointed as election officials, training to begin in April: ELD

2024-03-08 00:00:00.0 海峡时报-新加坡原网页

SINGAPORE - About 50,000 public servants are being appointed as election officials, the Elections Department (ELD) said on March 8.

“Training for election officials will commence in April 2024,” an ELD spokesman said in response to queries.

“All public officers who are appointed as election officials will be required to undergo training to ensure they are equipped to perform their duties effectively.”

Checks by The Straits Times showed that staff from various ministries and statutory boards, such as the Ministry of Law, Ministry of Communications and Information and National Parks Board, and school teachers had over the past week been notified of upcoming election duties.

Some public servants received their e-mail appointment as early as Feb 29 and as recently as March 8, they told ST on condition of anonymity.

One teacher, who was deployed in the 2023 Presidential Election, received her notice on March 3. The e-mail contained instructions to log in to a website for election officials with her Singpass, so as to complete the onboarding process.

It also said she had been assigned mobile election training modules on the website.

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Public servants who are deployed in an election can be assigned to one of several roles. These include counting assistants, presiding officers, senior presiding officers, assistant returning officers or senior assistant returning officers.

A large number will become presiding officers, who are stationed at polling stations to usher and register voters.

A new round of election official training should not be viewed as a sign that an election is imminent, given the lengthy gap between the two in past elections.

Public servants were called up for training about 31 months before the 2011 General Election, while the timeframe was about 11 months for the one held in 2015.

For the 2020 General Election, officers were notified of their election duties in July 2018, about 24 months before Singaporeans went to the polls.

ELD’s spokesman said on March 8 that public officers are appointed and trained on an ongoing basis to perform election duties, to prepare the public service to conduct elections in Singapore.

Past election training have included e-learning, classroom workshops and simulated exercises on nomination, polling and counting processes, though this varied depending on one’s assigned role.

A veteran public servant who was deployed in the 2023 Presidential Election and 2015 General Election recounted how her training in the lead-up to the presidential election took place entirely online, and consisted of a long deck of slides and videos detailing the different roles and responsibilities of officials.

But she was aware of others who had to attend face-to-face training. In 2015, the training was held in person at the Elections Department premises, she said.

An increasing number of public servants have been called up for election duty over the years. This is as the number of polling stations has risen to ensure smoother queues and shorter waits to cast one’s ballot.