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MP: Voters' register out by 15 percent

Door to door canvassing being spearheaded by area MP Michael Dunkley is showing what appears to be a discrepancy in the voters' rolls for the new Devonshire constituency number 11 (Devonshire East) of well over 15 percent.

Mr. Dunkley has yet to cover every household in the constituency but his list already provides the first hard evidence supporting the UBP's argument that the voters' list contains some significant inaccuracies.

Correcting them, on the face of it, should be easy - voters who are incorrectly registered should do the right thing and obey the law. But,says Mr. Dunkley, it's not that simple.

The vast majority of incorrectly registered voters simply forgot to make the updates and have every intention of doing so when it is brought to their attention, he said. But the process of bringing it to their attention could well be too onerous given the sheer numbers of people involved.

So far the UBP has found that about 155 people moved into the new Devonshire constituency number 11 (Devonshire East) since the last elections.

Few of them bothered to update their listing on the voters' list as required by law, reported the United Bermuda Party (UBP) on Friday night.

But Mr. Dunkley acknowledged yesterday that his list of unregistered new residents in the constituency could include people who were non-registered before they moved into the constituency, or have never been registered.

Some 40 people moved out and only three have so far updated their listing. Out of the 155 new residents, fewer than 20 had reregistered.

Date of birth information is provided for 96 of the names on the lists.Thirteen of those turned 18, the legal voting age, in 1998 or after.

"Before we have the first election under the 36 constituencies, the number of voters in each new zone could be way out of whack," Mr.Dunkley wrote to the Parliamentary Registrar last week.

"The Boundaries Commission Report has estimated that zones would have between 1,035 and 1,143 voters. The trend we have identified in zone 11 show this estimate by the Boundaries Commission could be misleading."

The letter added that the number of unregistered voters could be higher because the whole district was yet to be canvassed and number of people weren't home when the canvassers came calling.

Since gathering initial figures and reporting them to the Parliamentary Registrar on March 24, canvassers found another 20 people who had moved into the constituency, he said.

Mr. Dunkley's team has been knocking on doors in the area and checking to see if every resident of voting age is registered and where.

They then hand out registration forms and in a number of cases return the filled out forms directly to the Parliamentary Registrar.

Mr. Dunkley said about 75 percent of the constituency has been canvassed so far.

And he dismissed the argument that some people don't want to register to vote, saying statistically they were a blip on the radar screen.

"I think I've found two people in the whole area who said they never register and they never would. That doesn't even register as a percentage."

The recently released daft/drat voters' list has 933 names listed as registered to vote in that constituency.

And the Boundaries Commission report estimates that 1045 people are eligible to vote in the area.

Mr. Dunkley repeated his party's call for a re-registration of all voters on the Island.

In between elections, he said, about 35 percent of residents move and Devonshire East will be found to be a typical scenario across the Island.

Annual registration, which was abolished by the Progressive Labour Party (PLP) Government, while unpopular in some quarters, was away of reminding people to update their details, Mr. Dunkley said.Under the new and old system political parties appoint scrutineers to check for inaccuracies in the voters' list and bring them to the attention of the Parliamentary Registrar.

Mr. Dunkley argued yesterday that because of the abolition of annual registration the list could be more inaccurate than ever before and impose too much of a burden on the scrutineers.

"It seems that the law puts a heavy emphasis on scrutineers. Under the old system the annual registration did most of the work," he said."However under the new system it's the scrutineers' responsibility to make sure they are registered. It's not going to work. It's just an onerous and time consuming job. And I think we need to look at reregistration and allow the scrutineers to get on it and make sure it's correct."

An accurate voters' list was even more critical under the new single-seat electoral system because the constituencies are smaller and an election could be decided on a handful of votes, he continued.

He said he was keen to ensure that the coming elections are done as fairly as possible and that people don't find themselves without a vote when the day comes.

"Bermuda's always had the perception that our elections are done correctly without any corruption and any finagling of the ballot boxes and we need to continue that," Mr. Dunkley said.

Asked whether a re-registration is absolutely necessary to sort out the inaccuracies, he said time was of the essence.

"It needs to be sorted out soon but obviously that depends on when the election is. Without a re-registration it's going to be very difficult because a lot of legwork is going to have to be done and I don't think that's possible to say we've knocked on every door. Government and the Opposition should work to get as many people as possible to be registered to vote in the next election."

He declined to comment on the over MP Trevor Moniz's comments that the Parliamentary Registrar, Mrs. Phillips had been handpicked for her job, saying he had not heard the remarks firsthand, and it was more important to fix any inaccuracies in the voters' list.

"I have dealt with Mrs. Phillips and she's been very cordial and helpful and I can't comment on that."