Election officials now verifying new registrations
Voter registration is officially over and after more than a week of long lines, tonight employees of the Elections and Boundaries Department are now processing and validating those applications. This afternoon News Five’s Marion Ali sat down with Acting Chief Elections Officer, Ruth Meighan to find out more about this process.
Ruth Meighan, Acting Chief Elections Officer
“There is a cycle that normally runs up to the end of the month. It begins from the eleventh of one month going to the tenth, for registration, of the following month. The tenth is the normal cut off date. What happens now is that there was a special provision that was made for the amendment of the R.O.P. for Revision Court to take place on the eighteenth of January which will now allow those people who registered during this period of registration to get on the voter’s list and be allowed to participate in this year’s election. So we have cut-off date, tenth of January, and this will lead us up to the fifteenth where we’ll have the final date for objections, should there be any objections to those voters who registered.”
“Should there be an objection or these persons are disallowed for whatever reason that our officer may check to see if they live at the address that they have given or if anybody in Belize object to the person living in that area saying, for example, I know Ruth Meighan, she doesn’t live there and the court disallow that person; that person will be struck off.”
Marion Ali
“Of course that objection would have to be accompanied by proof?”
Ruth Meighan
“Has to be accompanied by proof.”
Marion Ali
“What about the concern, and I believe it is a legitimate concern, that some of the polling stations are not necessarily located within the constituency?”
Ruth Meighan
“We have not as yet finalised that list of polling stations. That, that was shared with the public was a list that we were working on. We had question marks against some of those polling stations that were listed there. That final list will be out by maybe the end of today or early next week. And the public can call at any of our registration office for them to get information on where they should be voting for this year’s elections. Visit us, call us and we will have that information ready for them.”
Marion Ali
“We’ve heard reports of identity theft. Has your department received any reports to this nature and what are you doing about it?”
Ruth Meighan
“This is the first I’m hearing of that. Haven’t heard any such concerns. No complaints came to our office on that, absolutely none.”
Marion Ali
“The Government’s proposal is that an election for a Senate also be held on election day. When that is held will the counting for that be made separate or be done on the same day as the counting for the general elections?”
Ruth Meighan
“As far as I know it should be done on the same day. It will be separate counting like we did with the town and city council election and remember we had two elections in one. Similarly, those counting will be done for the referendum and for the general elections on the same night.”
While the exact number of people who registered this month has not been released to the press, up to the end of December 2007, there were one hundred and forty-nine thousand, nine hundred and thirty registered voters. The Elections and Boundaries Department has planned a media briefing for next Thursday to discuss the upcoming elections.
