New voters or those on the move must register by Thursday if they want to get on the new electoral register to be published next month.

They must visit the Parliamentary Registration Office in Burnaby Street, Hamilton to sign up for the register which will be published on June 16.

People already on the register who have not moved do not need to re-register after the Government scrapped annual registration.

Parliamentary Registrar Lionel Dowling said he thought under the new system voter numbers would be slightly up on last year's electoral roll of 36,567.

However the new system has come under fire from the United Bermuda Party.

Shadow Legislative Affairs spokesman John Barritt said the new system could lead to a mass of angry, disenfranchised voters.

He said: "It was pronounced an annoyance and inconvenience to voters and denounced as a UBP method to discourage people from registering and thus voting.

"The last thing on people's minds when they move is to notify the Parliamentary Registrar.

"If you have moved and you haven't re-registered when the election rolls around you could be disqualified from voting -- period.

"You won't be able to vote where you're registered because you are no longer resident there and you won't be able to vote where you live because you are not registered there.'' He said in Devonshire South he and his running mate Michael Dunkley had found that 50 of the 250 registered voters canvassed last month had either moved in or moved out.

"That's a 20 percent ratio,'' said Mr. Barritt.

"And if that is in any way accurate you can figure out the sort of numbers we are talking about in an electorate of, say, 36,000 voters.

"And the Parliamentary Registrar himself has already gone on record in one of the newspapers to say he thinks we are talking about 4,000 people.

"Can you imagine the scramble when an election is called? Once the writ for an election is dropped people will have seven days to register if they are not already registered in the constituency in which they live.

"Seven days later the Parliamentary Registrar must publish the list of registered voters for each constituency.'' He said the political parties had seven days to challenge the inclusion of people they felt did not belong on the register for their constituency i.e.

they've moved and are living elsewhere.

"Hearings of the objections will have to be held and under the new law a final list ready in a further seven days at the latest,'' said Mr. Barritt in a speech last week.

"I shudder to think of the number of angry people there will be if they are challenged.

"And just how will the Parliamentary Registry cope with hundreds of challenges when there's also an election to be organised?'' Mr. Dowling admitted there had been a large number of people registering for the first time -- most of whom had changed address.

He said he did not expect a last minute scramble this week but he urged recently-moved voters to get a move on.

Mr. Dowling said a new register would have to be produced for the Smith's South by-election shortly after the island-wide one was produced.

Governor Thorold Masefield has yet to post a writ announcing the by-election following the resignation of United Bermuda Party MP C.V. (Jim) Woolridge.

John Barritt