BASSETERRE, St. Kitts, Mar. 26.2018 – FOLLOWING two meetings with representatives of the electoral office on St. Kitts, the Opposition, the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP) have concerns over the information passed on to its members.
According to the Party’s representative with responsibility for electoral matters Nigel Carty, they had several issues coming out of the February meeting and The Party wrote to Supervisor of Elections, Elvin Bailey about several concerns it had with regards to the operations of the office.
Carty explained that they were made aware of a problem with the Objections list prior to the February meeting.
He said they were told that there were no objections for 2015, but there were for 2016 and 2017.
However, it revealed that during the February meeting, they were told that the 2017 Objections list was misplaced.
“So, essentially, we got the objections for 2016, so yesterday’s (Mar. 22) meeting was a follow up arising out of the fact that on February 23 they had indicated they either lost or misplaced the objections registers for the year 2017.”
According to Carty, at Thursday's meeting they were given a list of areas where the objections were made: Constituencies One, Three and Four.
However, officials were not quite certain about the other areas. But Supervisor Bailey reportedly gave the assurance that he will know whether the registers given were indeed all of the objections.
Whilst that problem is being resolved, the SKNLP has raised another with regards to the consistent malfunctioning of the registration machines at the office, which they claim is stalling the registration process.
Carty said they told the officials that it is “highly unacceptable since there is no connection in the law between the computerized system and the right of the people to register to vote”.
To this end, he stated that they demanded that the procedure be changed and not have people turned away, but rather do handwritten registration and then input them in the system thereafter.
Additionally, the Party is blasting the office over a new procedure that they claim is disenfranchising Commonwealth residents who are temporary residents.
According to Carty, it was brought to the Party’s attention that many Commonwealth citizens who lived on the island for more than one year but left the Federation on vacation or for business are not being registered.
Supervisor Bailey told SKNVibes that it is a matter he would have to investigate, and as such cannot comment at this time.
