Protocols for Polling Stations on Election Day

Nomination Day leads to Election Day when the usual election processes have been changed to comply with social distancing and the limit of persons who can gather at the same place.  According to the new rules regarding Protocols for Polling Stations on Election Day, the voter will enter polling station, show ID and announce his or her name; the voter would then remove the face mask for facial verification before he or she sanitizes the index finger before dipping in the indelible ink. When that process is completed, the voter will receive the ballot and a sanitized pencil from the presiding officer.  After the ballot paper is placed in the ballot box, the voter would place the pencil in a container for used pencils for sanitization. The voter then immediately exits. The police will be on hand to ensure that the protocols are followed.

Marco Vidal

ACP Marco Vidal, Commander of Operations, Belize Police Department

“We have to maintain the hundred-line. Returning officers will ask political officers to refrain from setting up tents immediately after the hundred yards line or at the edge of polling station so as to not influence people and that kinda thing. No campaign will be allowed inside the hundred yards line, no media will be allowed within the hundred yards line. The voters can use their shirts with their party colours; however, no slogans will be worn on those shirts when they go to vote. Political polling agents will be allowed to wear party colours, but no slogan. Two runners for polling station for each party will be allowed on election day. They will only be allowed one minute to remain inside to get the information and leave. We don’t want them to remain too long in there. The voters will be required to wear a mask and it must properly be worn to cover nose and mouth. Each voter will be required to keep their social distance from the other voter; six feet markers will be placed outside and inside the polling station. Voters will be sanitized before entering the polling station and everyone entering each polling station will be sanitized before entering no matter how many times the person enters the polling station, if it is twenty times, twenty times they will be sanitized because they are leaving and coming back inside. Upon entering the polling station, the voter will be asked to drop their mask for ten seconds to be identified after which they are to put back on their masks.”