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BERMUDA | RSS PODCAST

Boundaries redrawn using ten-year-old census information

Despite all that work producing a new electoral map, complaints of unfairness in Bermuda's voting system are still rumbling on.

Many people remain able to vote in an area where they no longer live because the last voter registration took place more than a decade ago — a potentially crucial difference in tight marginals according to critics.

United Bermuda Party deputy leader Trevor Moniz said: "Some are decided by eight votes. If people are registered in the wrong constituency it makes a huge difference."

And the data used to redraw the map was gleaned from a ten-year-old Census — weeks before the Island's statistics are updated with a new census.

"You are basing the constituencies on information which is ten years out of date, which is clearly ridiculous," Mr. Moniz said.

He said the Parliamentary Registrar's recent launch of 'Mr. Catchem' — a cartoon gimmick designed to encourage people to register — was an admission that "they had no idea what's going on".

Mr. Moniz added that the Registrar no longer has the power to remove anyone from the register unless the individual agrees, or both parties agree.

He believes another discrepancy was highlighted in the 2003 General Election when the UBP took a large enough proportion of the vote to merit 16 seats, but under the first past the post system ended up with only 14.

UBP leader Kim Swan said the party was pushing for "one man, one vote, one vote, each vote of equal value".

Before the Boundaries Commission report, said Mr. Swan, many constituencies had a population of more than five percent above or below the Country's mean average.

The UBP's recommendations to the Commission were:

• ensure all constituencies have about the same size voting populations;

• increase the value of the vote in eastern parishes so that it matches that in the west;

• complete voter re-registration.

Mr. Swan is also calling for an overhaul of the Parliamentary Election Act, so that it includes:

• an independent electoral commission to provide oversight;

• the introduction of fixed term elections;

• specific steps the Parliamentary Register must take when a voter's registration is challenged.

The commission was chaired by Barbadian policymaker Dame Billie Miller, and included Dame Jennifer Smith and Health Minister Walter Roban of the Progressive Labour Party, and Bob Richards and Senator Jeanne Atherden of the UBP.

Bermuda Democratic Alliance chairman Michael Fahy, who sat on the committee while he was a UBP Senator, said: "I certainly was in favour of having a wholesale re-registration and that the Boundaries Commission didn't meet until they had done the Census.

"Legislation didn't permit that, but they could have changed the legislation."

And PLP backbencher Dale Butler said: "It is unfortunate the report was made on old data. But I have sent in numerous constituent changes to the registrar and he has done his best to investigate."

The commission also received a number of submissions backing Voters' Rights Association spokesman Stuart Hayward's call for one single constituency for Bermuda.