Election Day!
~ Richards strives to know
winning party by 11:00pm ~
PHILIPSBURG--Today is Election Day and, by establishing an operations centre, Chairman of the Main Voting Bureau Lt. Governor Franklyn Richards hopes to have an indication of which party has won the elections by 11:00pm tonight.
Hotlines have been installed at all 14 districts, as well as at the two sub-polling stations at St. Martin’s Home and the Pointe Blanche prison. The idea is for the chairpersons of the polling stations to call in the information on the total number of votes per party as soon as possible after the ballots have been sorted, counted and checked.
The polling stations close at 7:00pm. Six parties are contesting in these elections.
Richards said this way he hoped to speed up the counting process so that it should be clear by 11:00pm which party has won the Island Council elections, as well as the number of seats per party.
After the closing of the polling stations, the teams at the stations will first sort the ballots per party, putting aside the invalid and blank votes. After that they will count the number of votes per candidate.
The chairpersons of the polling stations will also be calling in to the operations centre, which is based at the Government Administration Building, on an hourly basis throughout the day to report on the number of votes cast. This, said Richards, will provide important information as to the turnout. If the turn-out is low, authorities can immediately respond by urging people to go out and vote. A total of 19,151 persons are eligible to vote.
The telephones at the polling stations were tested on the eve of the elections. Each polling station will have a cellular telephone as a back-up, except for the prison where cellular phones are not allowed.
Cellular telephones that are switched on are also absolutely forbidden inside the voting booths. Notices to that effect have been posted outside the polling stations. Those signs also say that no video-taping or taking of pictures is allowed, with the exception of the media.
Richards went to several polling stations Thursday evening to check if everything was in order. He was accompanied by Edelmiro Jansen, Acting Head of the Management Department of Public Works, who explained that installation of the voting booths and setting up of the polling stations had started on Wednesday. The polling stations at the various schools were put in order Thursday afternoon.
Jansen said the number of booths depended on the number of voters per district. Larger districts like Belvedere Community Centre, Milton Peters College in South Reward and Rupert Maynard Centre in St. Peters will have six booths, while “smaller” districts will have five, four or even fewer. The booths are always stored in a container at Public Works.
New this year are the red pencils that are inside the voting booths. Head of the Census Office and Acting Chairperson of the Main Voting Bureau Leona Marlin-Romeo said these pencils were more user-friendly than the old ones, which she said were also worn down.
The day at the Census Office starts very early today, explained Marlin-Romeo. The chairpersons of the polling stations have to report at 5:30am for last-minute instructions and to pick up the ballots, which the Census Office finished packing in sealed suitcases on Thursday.
The chairpersons will leave, with suitcases, to their polling stations at 7:00am, escorted by police. The polling stations will open at 8:00am. Each polling station is manned by five persons and a police officer.
Marlin-Romeo said “a good bit” of voters had come to the Census Office in the past few days to pick up their voting cards. The Post Office was not able to deliver all voting cards to the right addresses. In addition, a rather large number of people had misplaced or lost their voting cards. “We had to print a lot of duplicates,” she said.
The Census Office will be open today, Friday, from 8:00am to 6:00pm, to accommodate voters who still don’t have their voting cards. People who don’t have ID cards can also have them made today. A proper ID is needed to vote.
Even though selling of alcohol is permitted during this election, Lt. Governor Richards warned the public to behave in an orderly fashion today. “We have a zero tolerance on behaving drunk or disorderly. Any bad behaviour will be reported to the police station by the police officer at the polling station, and that person will be arrested,” he said, explaining that the Quick Response Team would be in action. (Suzanne Koelega)
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