Director of Elections Danville Walker yesterday conceded that voting for the security forces got off to a rocky start at two locations in the Corporate Area, but he said the polls eventually ran smoothly for most of yesterday.

He said the problems encountered should not be repeated during Thursday's election, but appealed to voters to assist the process by trying to find out beforehand where they are supposed to vote and not to wait until election day.

This can be done by calling the Electoral Office.

Mr. Walker explained that when the Electoral Office was compiling the lists for the police, it requested the Police High Command to state where each eligible police elector was serving and where they would vote. Based on the information obtained from the High Command, Mr. Walker said, 20 lists were made up for the police. The problems with those who could not find their names, he said, apparently arose because the police records were not up to date as to the locations in which some members were serving.

"It's not that they are not on the list, but some of them were not in the right location", the Director explained. He said he met one policeman who was attached to the Black River station in St. Elizabeth and was transferred to the Corporate Area 10 years ago, but on the police record "he's still in Black River".

There were reports that about a half of the eligible voters at the Police Training College in Twickenham Park, St. Catherine, were unable to find their names on the list. Mr. Walker said the college was an example of police transience.

However, the Director said about 80 per cent of the security forces were able to cast their ballots yesterday and those who did not would be able to do so with the civilian population on Thursday.

Mr. Walker said ballots were delivered to the polling divisions at Half-Way Tree and East Street late because those were closer locations to the Electoral Office and they were concentrating on first delivering to those stations which were farther away.

The security forces, who usually vote before the rest of the population so they can be free to provide adequate security on election day, should have voted on Saturday, December 13, but the date was pushed back to yesterday so that the ballots could be affixed with new security features, as a result of a breach discovered last week.

However, Mr. Walker declined to comment on a report that some of the ballots used yesterday did not have the security features, stating that an audit was being done and a statement was expected to be made on the matter today.