The voters’ list is created by law. It is extracted from the national register when an order is made by the Elections Commission. The national register is created pursuant to the provisions of the National Registration Act and under the supervision of the Elections Commission. In the past, the national register was compiled by periodic, house-to-house, registration. Some years ago, a system of continuous registration was implemented whereby registration takes place all the year round at fixed registration offices. This eliminated, as it was intended to, the need for periodic, nationwide, house-to-house compilation of the national register.
Periodic, house-to-house, registration had resulted in the past in the scrapping of the then existing national register and the creation of a new one. This new national register did not capture the names of persons who had migrated or otherwise left Guyana since the creation of the previous national register. This is because they were not present in Guyana during the house-to-house visits by registration officials. The change in the system of national registration from periodic house-to-house visits to continuous registration meant that the national register retained the names of persons who had registered while residing in Guyana but had left Guyana at some point since.