The Papua New Guinea election office is yet to decide if some of the votes in the cancelled elections in the Southern Highlands province can be kept.
This comes as preparations continue for polling to be held in April after last July's ballotting was abandoned amid violence and fraud.
Peter Niesi reports.
"One of the key problems that is yet unresolved is the question of what to do with the provincial votes that were collected from the three open MPs that were already have declared MPs. At the moment, one candidate from the previous elections has secured up to 97,000 votes which gives him a good edge if he renominates and those votes are kept."
