Getting Out the Voters for Re-Registration

Dean Barrow

Before the I.C.J. referendum is held next year, there is the matter of the re-registration exercise spearheaded by the Elections and Boundaries Department, which is set to begin on July first.  That exercise will run in the millions of dollars.  Government has since allocated monies that will go toward a budget leading up to next April’s referendum; it is also expected to cost millions more.

Prime Minister Dean Barrow

“Eight million dollars have budgeted for this first year’s re-registration operations.  The Chief Elections Officer, together with the Elections and Boundaries Commission, they’ve already met with political parties to discuss in detail, preparations for the re-registration and to share operational aspects in terms of how the exercise will proceed.  The additional resources that will be deployed and the fact that, as I understand it, in the early months of re-registration during which extra classrooms will be available to serve as registering offices.  That will be made use of so that this thing can begin with a sprint.  The idea is in the context of the April 2019 referendum that by the end of October the first new list in consequence of the re-registration exercise will be produced and the hope is that by the time April comes, that list would have been sufficiently robust, impelled, the re-registration process no doubt impelled by the fact that everybody knows the re-registration is coming and that ought to galvanize people we hope to go and get re-registered.”

Chief Elections Officer Josephine Tamai met with the media last Wednesday to discuss requirements for re-registration.