Evening out the Odds in the Electoral Process

As mentioned earlier, the purpose for redrawing the respective electoral districts is to evenly distribute the number of voters, as best as possible to address the existing malapportionment.

Josephine Tamai

Josephine Tamai, Chief Elections Officer

“We all know that in terms of a redistricting exercise and the exercise has several benefits and one of them is to ensure that we have equal voting power.  So what we need to do is to look at the present composition of the number of electors in each of the electoral divisions.  So we have to look at our statistics.  We also need to look at the present electoral maps, as it stands, in order for us to determine where the boundaries are and to see the discrepancies in terms of having persons in one specific area as opposed to another division.  So we also need to look at those maps.  We also need to get the information from the Statistical Institute of Belize in terms of population.  We also need to see, for example, where exactly you have growth in different areas because at the end of the day, whenever all this information is being compiled we have to ensure that persons are: one, able to reach to their polling stations on Election Day as well.  So yes, we have to look at nearly and maybe an equal number of persons in each electoral division as the constitution states but we also need to look at the whole geographical areas to ensure that transportation is available.”