Former Justice of the Supreme Court Husnu Al Suood stated today that if the Supreme Court rules to invalidate all ballot papers that had dots on them caused during printing, it may cause major issues.

The issue was brought forward by Mohamed Nazeeh, who contested for the Meemu Veyvah Council on the PNC ticket. He submitted the case to the High Court after three vote papers, which were considered invalid, were later determined to be valid by the Elections Commission after reopening and re-examining a ballot box.

The lawyer for the Elections Commission stated that the marks on those three papers were not dots placed by the person who went to vote, but were dots that occurred during printing, and that the votes should not be voided. In the election, MDP candidate Ahusham had secured victory over Nazeeh by a margin of two votes.

In the judgment delivered by the High Court, it stated that the marks on the three vote papers involved in the case were marks that made the papers identifiable even upon a superficial inspection. Therefore, the court ruled that these were not votes where the secrecy of the vote could be guaranteed.

Consequently, the judgment declared those three vote papers invalid. It also ordered the Elections Commission to announce the election results again after deducting those three votes. By following this order, the election victory shifted to Nazeeh instead of the MDP candidate.

During today's trial hearing, Suood stated that ballot papers across Maldives that were cast may have dots on them and if the court rules the ballots are invalid because of that, it may bring about undesirable consequences.

"If the court rules that all of the ballot papers that have dots on them are invalid, it is my opinion that it may cause a major disruption. It is viable to submit a case to check whether the ballots have dots on them... but the deadline has gone past, and even so, the ruling may raise questions of its validity," said Suood.

Suood went on to say that Maldives has not encountered the issue of print ink being on ballot papers in the past. He highlighted that if the ballots are invalidated, it will affect all future elections.

According to the Elections Commissions regulations, polling stations can only have and can only bring in pens with blue ink that do not leave any ink stains. The marks on the ballot papers in the ongoing case were caused by black ink. And so, Suood said that instead of looking into whether the voter may have left behind such ink stains, it is likely that the ink may have come from the printing stages.

MDP proceeded to intervene when the case was being heard in the High Court. MDP has appealed the ruling that was made, but it is yet to be accepted.

As the case is still in court, the Veyvah Council seat remains vacant.