and Mr Clemaurde Gumbs (right)
With the Elections Act now passed by the Anguilla House of Assembly, the Supervisor of Elections, Ms Aurjul Wilson, is in a better position to move forward with plans for the district general election and, for the first time, the island-wide or at-large voting in 2020.
One of the requirements is for voters to possess a Registration Card to submit at the polling stations. This would speed up the process, avoid searching through the long list for names – and thereby reduce the long lines of persons waiting in the heat of the sun for hours to vote. The Registration Card they will be required to produce is available at the Central Electoral Office where voters are being invited to update their status.
However, the Electoral Office has reported that although there are constant reminders and updates, there is a slow trek of persons visiting the office to sign up for the Registration Cards. The figures show that, with well over 10,000 registered voters on the list, and with elections due next year, only some 700-plus persons have turned up to update their status and to receive the Registration Card.
“I am concerned that of the 10,968 voters on the list only about 782 persons have come to update their status,” Ms Wilson told The Anguillian newspaper. “The reason I am concerned about is that the [voting] process would take so much less time if persons have their status updated. The new legislation requires that certain information is on record to make sure that the persons who are voting are in fact those who present themselves on the Voter Registration Card.”
She continued: “If you come to update your status, you will need to present some sort of ID to the Central Electoral Office. The purpose of the ID is to make sure that you are who you say you are. This ID can either be a passport, a social security card, your driver’s licence or any other type of identification. This is let us see your image and then enter the other information – like your date of birth etc.
The law requires that information in the system, and you will get your Voter Registration Card within two minutes.”
Ms Wilson emphasised that persons are required to report to the Electoral Office in person as it is not possible to take the live database [equipment] to persons who are also required to take a photograph. “I have been racking my brain as to how we can get this done,” she acknowledged. “I even said we can open on a weekend if needs be but, really, what would that do? If people are not coming, they are not coming. But I would hope that politicians, aspiring politicians and other candidates would encourage their supporters to update their status and obtain their Voter Registration Card. The majority of the politicians have actually been in here, and have their cards, and I think it is for them to join with me in terms of encouraging persons to come to update their status and receive their Voter Registration Card.”
Pressed to elaborate, the Supervisor of Elections told the newspaper: “When this office opened in March of last year, one of the things we discontinued was for politicians to be bringing in mounds of papers and applications for persons to vote. Anybody applying to register to vote has to appear in person. We take their photograph, other information and they have to sign in our presence.”
Earlier, Ms Wilson said: “All but one polling station in the past had been held in Government buildings except in District 5 where the Bethel Church Hall was used. My biggest concern is at The Valley Primary School where the buildings we used are no longer there.
Then, in the case of the House of Assembly, which is to be repaired, a decision had to be taken as to where we would have the counting of ballots.
“Right now, the biggest space that I will have to utilise for the counting, as well as advance polls and for District 3, Valley North, would be the Rodney MacArthur Rey Auditorium at Campus B – and then we have to make sure that it is outfitted properly… I had a conversation last week with the Information & Technology Department regarding making sure that our internet connections would be adequate there. That will be one of our main hubs because, as I said, we will be doing the counting from that location.”
Ms Wilson spoke about a versatile piece of equipment to be used in the counting of ballots. “It is the DS200 machine we will be using,” she explained. It will be counting all of the votes. It will track the island-wide voting on one point and the district ballots on another simultaneously,” she stated in explaining in part the use and technicalities of the machine. “While we are voting manually we will be counted electronically. When you put the ballot paper into the machine it will record the island-wide and the district voting separately. There will be four machines.”
On the question of polling booths, she said: “We are trying to expedite the length of time that persons have to stay in the lines so, rather than having one booth per polling station, we will now have four booths per polling station. As you know, we will also be scanning the Voter Registration Card to make it easier to vote, and that too will cut down the time significantly because previously we would go through the hard copy of the list. Now, because we have automated that part of the system, the voter information will instantaneously appear on the screen and then we can issue voters their ballot paper.”
Ms Wilson disclosed that so far there were 82 persons employed to conduct the elections and that training and budgetary arrangements were now in hand. The money is being provided by both the Government of Anguilla – under the Consolidated Fund – and the British Government.
