Political parties express concerns over revised voting process in Belmopan
 | |
The Peoples United Party Candidate for the Belmopan Constituency, Dr. Amin Hegar, along with independent candidate Richard Smith, as well as VIP's Paul Morgan who is running as a Mayoral Candidate for the City of Belmopan, visited Plus TV's office to express their concerns on a change that the Elections and Boundaries is enacting for the City of Belmopan. The trio is saying that the Elections and Boundaries is splitting the City of Belmopan into Central, East, North and West. Morgan further says that some of the streets named on the elections and boundaries list do not even exist in Belmopan.
Paul Morgan, VIP Mayoral Candidate, Belmopan
The Belmopan polling area eighty-six will be broken down into Central, East, North and West. This will be the order in which people will go to the polling station to vote, although we are one polling area. Now, that in itself isn’t bad, what is bad is that on the list of streets that the Elections and Boundaries have designated here, there is no such street for some voters. Let me give you an example; let us take a look at the voter’s list – if you look at the registration street, this person’s address is Ladyville Bainton Bank and this other person’s address is Ladyville Los Lagos and there are many persons on this list with such addresses that are not in fact in Belmopan. I cannot understand what kind of efficiency that is other than major chaos being caused, because this person from Bainton Bank and this person who live in Lady Los Lagos and some who live in Bella Vista and other unknown streets names that are not in Belmopan, I am wondering where will they put them to vote.
Dr. Hegar says he totally objects to the changes especially since it is only being done in the City of Belmopan.
Amin Hegar, Contesting Belmopan, PUP
They want to divide my constituency into Belmopan Central, Belmopan East, Belmopan West and Belmopan North and up to now we don’t have that listing yet and the Elections and Boundaries and Mr. Saldivar knew about this long ahead, I am sure about that because our PUP representatives in the Elections and Boundaries are saying that they are had no idea about this dividing of Belmopan. We objected totally and we wanted it to be done just like it was done in the past. Why have they chosen to do this in Belmopan only? Do they have something against the Belmopaneese? Do they want to cheat? I don’t know what, but we in the PUP are totally objecting.
Richard Smith says that the decision taken is too close to election day, which is only fifteen days away. Morgan also expressed that he can only foresee chaos and confusion.
Paul Morgan
Why is it that the Elections and Boundaries Department is breaking down Belmopan by streets, when in fact we know that the street order and the database on streets is not even efficient. Elections and Boundaries do not have the right database to say that in fact the streets that are listed here do exists. Like my colleague said, fifteen days before elections - it just isn’t workable; there is something amiss here.
We asked chief elections officer about the streets named on the voters list such as Ladyville Bainton Bank and Ladyville Los Lagos which do not exist in the City of Belmopa.n
Jesse Mendoza, PlusTV Journalist
Now what about those persons on the list who live on a street such as Los Lagos Ladyville and other areas, when such a streets are not in Belmopan?
Josephine Tamai, Chief Elections Officer, Elections and Boundaries
Which one of the lists did you see? Did you see the list that we published with the names that will be in North, Central, West and East?
Jesse Mendoza
Yes that is the list that I saw.
Josephine Tamai
Did you see some with Los Lagos addresses?
Jesse Mendoza
Yes.
Josephine Tamai
I am seeing that at this point.
When we spoke with the Chief Elections officer she said that they have corrected those errors and that the voters list for Belmopan should be ready tomorrow. In terms of the division for Belmopan, te City of Belmopan is the second largest constituency in the country and according to Chief Elections Officer Josephine Tamai they saw it necessary to divide Belmopan into four divisions.
Josephine Tamai
The decision to break down Belmopan into four areas, namely the Central, North, West and East was in order to assist us in organizing the voting process. Belmopan has a total of seven-thousand seven-hundred eight voters and Belmopan is the only area that has only one polling area. In terms of the numbers, Belmopan is huge compared to the other areas and it is the only place that has one polling area.
Tamai explains that voting will still take place at Belmopan Comprehensive and persons from Belmopan Central, North, East and West will be assigned to different buildings on the same compound.
Josephine Tamai
Everyone will still vote at the Belmopan Comprehensive High School, it’s just that separate buildings will be assigned. We are saying that no one will be deprived, because once you are in the wrong line, you will be escorted to the correct building and placed at the correct station. So everything still remains at the Comprehensive High School; however, somewhere down the line, probably for the next election, we will have different polling areas for Belmopan, where persons go to vote at different locations. However for this time around, it won’t be different locations; everything will still be at the Belmopan Comprehensive School. Let us say for example a person from the North area is assigned to building one – building one will be broken down for example from A –L and from M-Z. So you will have two different alphabetical break downs in that building. So for all those persons from the North area, if your surname falls between A - L, then you go to a particular classroom.
We asked the Chief Elections Officer how residents of Belmopan can view the new list that the Elections and Boundaries have drafted up PHONE
Josephine Tamai
Voters can visit our website which is www.elections.gov.bz and that has a voter lookup that has information for persons registered. Also those persons can go to our registering offices in Belmopan or they can also go to the central office in Belize City to check exactly where they have registered, because we will go by the registered address of that person. On Elections Day we will be having our officers out there to assist persons who aren’t sure. We will also have the list of streets displayed at a central location, so persons can actually go and check the list to ensure that they are at the right building.
As Tamai said, Belmopan Comprehensive will still be the polling station but eventually they will have different polling stations in Belmopan Central, North, East and West in future elections.
|
|