GECOM Chairman Dr Steve Surujbally says that the Commission will stand by its decision not to allow party polling agents to vote where they are stationed today saying that the law does not provide for them to do so.
“We are not going to break the law and the law is very clear,” he said. “The Representation of the People Act… states very clearly” that specific persons are allowed to vote at their place of poll which is where they registered and not where they work, he said at a press briefing held this morning.
Opposition coalition A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) last night urged GECOM to consider employment certificates for its polling and counting agents to be allowed to vote where they are stationed today, saying that failure to do so will disenfranchise over 300 of its poll workers.
Responding to APNU, without identifying the party Surujbally said that the law specifically says that only “the Chief Election Officer, the Deputy Chief Election Officer, the Returning Officer, the Deputy Returning Officer, the Elections Clerk ,Presiding Officer, the Assistant Presiding Officer and the Poll clerk,” could vote at polling stations at which they would be working.
Dr Rupert Roopnaraine, APNU’s prime ministerial candidate, said the party applied some months ago to GECOM to allow the group of persons in question to be issued with certificates of employment to permit them to vote at the polling stations where they will be working today. He said that the party was informed yesterday that the applications were denied.
He said that from all appearances, GECOM appeared to be adhering “rigidly” to Section 2 of the Representation of the People Act, which defines the persons who can be issued with the certificates. He noted that while the polling and counting agents do not fall into the category, since 1992, these persons in question have always been issued with the certificates.
Surujbally insisted that the polling agents would not be disenfranchised unless they wanted to. “If I were a betting man, I would wager that very few, if any, not one of those 300 would be disenfranchised,” he said. “Why? Because we have so many polling stations all over the district in which they are living that they, especially since it’s a holiday…can get down to their area where they have registered …vote and get back, especially in a period of lull,” he continued.
Acknowledging that there may be some element of distrust, Surujbally indicated that there would be at least 7 or 8 other persons at a polling station. “It would take great collusion for someone to do something in that period while that party agent is out of the Office,” the Chairman remarked.
