17 Nov 2010

Cooks voting to begin at 9am tomorrow

7:01 pm on 17 November 2010

Voting in the Cook Island's general election opens at nine in the morning to choose a new 24-seat parliament.

The electoral office says all arrangements are in place with several of the outer islands having voted early to ensure their ballots could be counted in a timely fashion.

The Electoral Officer, Taggy Tangimetua, says the ballot boxes will be secure while the final count is being undertaken:

"We've got the Ministry of Justice where their records are kept and that's where it's going to be stored...and with the outer islands we've actually asked the Bank of Cook Islands for the use of their storage. If money is safe there then surely ballot papers will be safe too."

Taggy Tangimetua says the first preliminary results will start to come an hour after the polls close