Walker
THE ELECTORAL Office of Jamaica (EOJ) yesterday carried out its threat to publish the names of hundreds of persons who were found to have been enumerated more than once, but who refused to attend recent public sittings which gave them the chance to explain their actions.
Also published yesterday were the names of persons who had been asked to re-register after a cleaning of voters list revealed that they had supplied inadequate data.
About 4,000 names in total were published yesterday and Neville Graham, information officer at the EOJ, said another 3,500 names will be published today.
In the case of those who were enumerated more than once, Mr. Graham explained that the EOJ had difficulty verifying their addresses. In some instances, challenges about the individual's eligibility were raised by the political parties.
The EOJ has cited incomplete data such as hard to read fingerprints, photographs and other demographics as the reasons why some people were asked to re-register. Although they were notified and enumerators sent back into the field to track them, Mr. Graham said about 5,000 of them could not be found.
"After that re-registration exercise we found that there was a hardcore element of this number that had either moved out of the constituency, changed ad-dress or migrated. They flat out refused to be re-registered," Mr. Graham said yesterday. "It is to this set of persons that we are saying, 'you will not be included on the voters list for May 31. If you think that this shouldn't be so come forward and tell us why'," he added.
In the meantime, Director of Elections Danville Walker has warned that those persons who deliberately tried to beat the system would have their names turned over to the police. These include those whose fingerprints appeared on the computers as many as five times, with five different addresses and five different photographs. Those found guilty under the Representation of the People's Act could be fined up to $20,000 or sent to prison for up to two years.
The sittings, held for two weeks in all 60 constituencies, were conducted by Returning Officers. They ended on Friday.
Mr. Walker told The Gleaner last week that those who refused to attend the sittings would have had their names struck from the voters list after their names were first published in the press. They now have 10 days, until May 30, to appeal to their Returning Officer "to show just cause why they should be included on the new voters list due to be published on May 31."
Up to last Thursday, only 10 per cent or about 300 of the roughly 3,000 persons found to have been enumerated more than once during the exercise leading up to the December 1997 general election turned up at the sittings.
The names of the persons published to date are from constituencies in Kingston and St. Andrew, Clarendon and St. Catherine.
