Representatives of the Anguilla United Front, Anguilla Progressive Movement,
Independent Candidates and supporters
For the first time, all 21 electronic tabulating machines for the upcoming elections in Anguilla were publicly tested simultaneously at the Atlin Harrigan Parliamentary Building on Thursday, June 11.
A requirement of the Anguilla Elections (Amendment Act) 2020, the testing was done by the Central Electoral Office in the presence of a large gathering including district and island-wide candidates of the Anguilla United Front, the Anguilla Progressive Movement, independent candidates, members of the general public and the media.
Section 52 of the Elections Act, which provides for the testing of the tabulating the machines, reads as follows:
52 (1) Where the electronic voting system is to be used for general elections, on any day, not more than 10 days prior to the election day, the Supervisor of Elections shall conduct the testing of the electronic tabulation machines to ascertain that the equipment will be without error.
Displaying and testing of tabulating machines 
Displaying and testing of tabulating machines 
Displaying and testing of tabulating machines
(2) A public notice of the time and place for the testing of the electronic tabulating machines under subsection (1) shall be provided by the Supervisor of Elections at least 40 hours prior to such testing, by publication or announcement in designated media service of general circulating in Anguilla.
(3) Upon testing of the electronic tabulating machines, the Supervisor of Elections shall certify the accuracy of the tests and such tests shall be open to representatives of political parties, independent candidates, members of the press and the general public.
(4) Where any errors are detected upon the testing of the electronic tabulating machines, the cause of such errors shall be ascertained and corrected, and an errorless count shall be made on each machine before each election machine is approved for use in the election.
(5) For the purpose of this section, the electronic tabulating system shall be tested with or without the use of electricity. Supervisor of Elections, Mr Rodney Rey, explained the provisions of the Elections Act to the gathering. He was grateful to his team for their work as well as members of the public for their participation. Meanwhile, over the past few weeks, one of the electronic tabulating machines was used throughout Anguilla to familiarise candidates and their supporters with its operations.
The Equipment was funded mainly by the UK Government. It puts Anguilla well ahead of other Caribbean islands in the electoral voting process. The system has been described as “user-friendly” and is expected to speed up the counting of the ballots and the delivery of the results.
