NEBE receives 20,000 voter-marking ink pens

April 26,2005

The National Electoral Board of Ethiopia received last Friday (April 22) 20,000 indelible ink pens out of the total 240,000 pens required to smear electors’ fingers to make sure that voters will not cast a ballot more than once.

The ink is being imported by an Indian company in replacement of the previous ink, which was found to be fast fading. The supplier had agreed to change the type of ink without an additional cost.

“The previous voter marking ink had a chemical composition of 12 per cent Silver Nitrate, while the newly imported one has 25 per cent Silver Nitrate, which increases its indelibility,” says Kemal Bedri, NEBE Chairman.

The importation of all the voter-marking ink is expected to be completed until the end of this month. The fund for the purchase of the indelible ink was obtained from a basket fund of donors’ contribution for the May 15 federal and regional parliamentary elections in Ethiopia.

The new ink was tried out and accepted during the political parties’ forum. It is to be recalled that the same forum had rejected the previous ink seeing that it was fast-fading.