Courts in Yemen's western province of Amran have sentenced 14,522 people to suspended three-month jail terms each for registering to vote multiple times, the state Saba news agency reported on Sunday.
The agency said the multiple voter registration violations were committed in 15 constituencies of the province during a nationwide campaign to update the voter registry last August, dpa reported.
Under the rulings, names of the duplicate registrants would be removed from the voter registry. They are to be denied the right to cast their ballots in the next legislative elections in 2011, Saba reported.
Some 1,350 other registrants were acquitted of the multiple registration charge, it added.
The public prosecution in Amran, about 50 kilometres north-west of the capital Sana'a, had charged a total of 15,872 with multiple voter registration, according to Saba.
The registry update was meant to pave the way for a legislative elections that was initially scheduled for next April.
On February 26, the House of Deputies (Parliament) approved a two- year postponement of the elections until 2011 in order to provide time to reform the electoral system.
The postponement came after the country's main opposition parties threatened to boycott the election, saying preparations for the vote were setting the stage for a rigged electoral process.
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