The Guyana Elections Commission (Gecom) will erect billboards in each constituency in an effort to educate voters about the boundaries of their constituency. The first of these will go up by the middle of next week.
According to Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield, the billboards are part of the commission’s ongoing voter and civic education programme, which began in September 2015.
He added that the training of polling day staff, which started at the same time, continues with the number of recruited staff having reached “a stage where [they] are comfortable that [they] have the required numbers to work on E-Day.”
Lowenfield had previously said that the commission was experiencing a shortage of staff in some areas including Georgetown.
“As far as possible persons [E-day staff] must be organic to the constituency in which they are registered. We want to have all our staff working in the same area as their private residences and we are almost there with having that accomplished,” he explained.
He also noted that the commission is currently in the process of designing the sensitive material for E-day. These material including ballot paper, statements of polls and tally sheets once designed are to be printed at a company in Montreal, Canada under the supervision of selected commissioners.
The ballot papers being designed are expected to be similar to the ones used at last year’s general and regional elections in that they will allow for the voter to vote twice. These new ballot papers will however include a new element in that in the first-past-the-post section, the voter will find not just the symbol but also the photograph of the contesting candidate for their constituency.
