East Timorese electoral officials Wednesday acknowledged "systematic failures" in the preparation of voters' lists for the August 30 constituent assembly balloting and appealed to the population to carefully check posted preliminary lists.

Reports from across the UN-administered territory said that thousands of people had flocked to electoral centers across the half- island to check the lists since they were made public Monday. In a statement, the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI) in Dili said it was "paying maximum attention" in preparation of the final voters' lists and was asking registrars to provide or correct "missing and faulty data".

"The CEI takes particular notice that, due to systematic failures in the transfer of data from local civil registries to the central registration unit, there may have been people who received a registration card but whose data may not appear on lists sent to the CEI", the statement said. The commission added that it had detected 6,500 names improperly omitted before publication of the preliminary lists. Officials have estimated that corrected, final lists will have about 380,000 voters.

Electoral official Carlos Valenzuela stressed to reporters "the importance of the largest number of people possible verifying" the lists because "it is the last opportunity to correct any errors" before the August 30 vote.