4 Nov 2008

American Samoa gears up for polling day

5:38 pm on 4 November 2008

American Samoa is gearing up for its elections tomorrow.

Ballot boxes for the islands of Manu'a were flown there this morning on Inter island Air.

The boxes for Tau island which has three polling booths departed Tutuila island this morning.

The ballot boxes for Ofu and Olosega left late this morning.

Airline personnel said that the two flights taking ballot boxes to Manu'a were charters for the Election Office.

The flights took the ballot boxes for the House of Representatives, congressional and gubernatorial races.

From past elections, the Manu'a votes are counted a few hours before the polls on Tutuila close at 6pm.

This is because usually the number of voters known to be residing in Manu'a would have all cast ballots by early afternoon.