More than 40,000 could be added to voters’ list

At Friday September 30th’s close of enumeration for the November 30 voters’ list, in excess of 40,000 persons had applied to be added since publication of the last list on May 31. Of that number, a record 9,000 applied in the final week.

According to Director of Elections Orette Fisher, the Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ) would now be processing the applications before the final publication of the list. 

“At this stage we could not say if these 40,000 applicants would be going on the list until they have been processed. We have to now do things like check fingerprints to make sure they have not been on the list before and to ensure that they are eligible, resident verification to make sure persons actually live at the address they give, and so on,” he stated.

“I also could not say the exact number of those who would be removed, because of death. So when the new list is published, we would have those successful applicants being added and those reported as dead being removed.”

Fisher said there were over 1.6 million persons on the list before, so if all the applicants are successful there would be more than 40,000 added to the list. 

Persons who missed Friday’s deadline will have to wait until next year May to be added to the voters’ list.

Going into the general elections constitutionally due next year, he said at this stage EOJ was in a basic state of readiness, which included the November 30 voters’ list, polling locations identified and blank ballots to be printed. 

He added that the things such as workers, equipment and technicians would be left until closer to the election.

Fisher also said that some of the equipment used in the last election needed replacement, while additional equipment were needed in some cases, which would be funded from the election budget.