Public assistance needed to clean up voters’ list

Members of the general public are being asked to get involved in the process to clean up the voters’ list.{{more}}

Speaking on Tuesday night on Star Radio, Senator Julian Francis said that if anyone knows a family member who may have gone overseas for more than five or seven years and his or her name still appears on the voters’ list, they ought to give the information to the Supervisor of Elections.

“Assist her,” he pleaded.

According to Francis, supervisor of elections Sylvia Findlay had started a process to regularize the voters’ list.

He said, earlier this year, supervisor of elections Sylvia Findlay announced that her office had divided the voters’ list into two categories — the first being the names of persons that have the new ID card, and the other list containing the names of persons who have not yet applied for a new card, and therefore have expired identification cards.

Francis said as of November 19, 2013, the number of registered voters In St Vincent stood at 104,853.

“And we all know that this is high. We all know that there are names on that list that don’t exist or not eligible to vote,” Francis said.

He said he believes that many of the people whose names are on the list had migrated.

“There is continuous registration, a person’s name cannot be taken off the list unless there is proof that the person is dead or migrated,” he said.

“The proof of the person being dead is easy to get, because we are in St Vincent and you can get a death certificate as evidence that the person died.”

However, in places such as New York, where a lot of Vincentians may have migrated, it is a more difficult process.

“But we can still get that information.”

(ULP) general secretary said as of November 19, there were 63,582 persons on the list who have the new identification cards.

“This is a matter of interest,” he said.

He noted that the number of persons who voted in the last election amounted to 62,663, which is close to the number of persons who have new identification cards.

He therefore said of the 104,853 persons on the list, there are 41,000 persons who have to be dealt with.

“We need to clean it up and we do it with the two political parties involved.

He called on the public to assist the supervisor of elections to clean up the list.

“I don’t want anybody crying foul, I don’t want anybody saying that the ULP rigged the election list. It cannot be rigged, the supervisor of elections has the responsibility for that and they have their internal records which they keep and they produce the voters’ list and both political parties have to accept that. So we have to work along with her.

Francis said Findlay has it open until July 2014 to have the list regularized.

“Naturally if an election is called within that time, the 105,000 persons’ names will be on the list. You can’t take anybody’s name off the list because they have the old ID card, they have already registered. …So once you get the information, give it to the supervisor of elections and she will clear it up.