* More officials to man polling centers for Sri Lanka general election
Sun, Mar 14, 2010, 09:42 pm SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.

Mar 14, Colombo: Sri Lanka Election Secretariat is in the process of allocating election officials to the thousands of polling centers in the country. The Election Secretariat has issued a special circular on the deployment of officials for election duty.

According to the circular, eight officials will be deployed to man the polling booths where there are less than 800 voters while nine officials are to man polling centers with 800 – 1200 voters and 14 officials to man with voters numbering between 1200 and 1500. Polling centers with more than 1500 voters will be manned by 15 officials.

The Elections Secretariat will deploy 300,000 public sector employees for election duty in the forthcoming general election, 50,000 more than the number utilized for poll duties during the presidential election.

A total of 7,620 candidates from 24 political parties and 310 independent groups are contesting for 196 parliamentary seats at the general election to be held on April 8.