LEAVE THE DEAD ALONE!
April 15, 2015 | By KNews | Filed Under Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom, Source
APNU is resurrecting the dead. Not to vote.
In the 1973 elections, those long entombed and cremated suddenly rose from the dead and voted. You need not ask which party they voted for. Hopefully those days are over. There may still be a few dead persons on the list, but the system has checks and balances to prevent that person from voting or having someone vote for the dead.
One of those checks and balances is the right of political parties to assign polling agents to every polling station. The problem arises when a polling agent who is registered in one area has to work for his or her political party in another area. By law, someone can only vote outside of the area in which they are registered to vote if that person is a staff member of GECOM and is forced to work on polling day outside of where they are registered.
Last elections, APNU had tried to obtain letters of employment for their polling agents so as to facilitate them voting where they are stationed on Election Day that is outside of the area where they are registered to vote.
This matter has long been laid to rest by GECOM. It has rightly ruled that polling agents are not employed by GECOM and therefore have no entitlement to any employment letter. This is a correct position, and if GECOM were to rule otherwise it could lead to a legal challenge that could result in the vitiating of the elections.
Just why APNU wants to resurrect this matter is not clear. But surely they cannot expect GECOM to designate the polling agents of political parties as employees of GECOM. That would be unlawful, and it would also be improper.
GECOM already have their hands full. GECOM will have to do paperwork for each of the expected three thousand polling agents. This paperwork would be necessary to allow these polling agents access to the polling stations to which they are assigned by the respective political parties.
Even if it were legally possible, it would be unreasonable and too demanding to now ask GECOM to prepare more than three thousand letters to facilitate polling agents to vote in the same place where they are working. GECOM has more important things to do than to be issuing such letters to polling agents.
This matter was long settled since the last elections. Why now is APNU attempting to resurrect it? It should not seriously affect the APNU+AFC coalition’s ability to monitor the polls. It did not affect them the last time and this time it should be easier.
It is accepted that in some areas, APNU may not be able to find a single person who is their supporter and willing to be a polling agent. The PPPC will have similar problems in some areas known to be strongholds of APNU.
But APNU+AFC is now contesting the elections as a coalition. Surely if there are areas where APNU cannot find a supporter to be in the polling station as a polling agent, the AFC should be able to do so. There is therefore no reason why each polling agent identified by APNU+AFC cannot be stationed in the polling station where he or she has to vote.
The Electoral Assistance Bureau (EAB) has to find thousands of observers for the elections. They too face the problem that these agents may be required to vote at one polling station area and observe the elections at another. To avoid problems they have decided that their observers on polling day will be stationed at the polling stations where they have to vote.
While this could present some conflicts of interest for the observers of the EAB, it is beneficial for the polling agents of the political parties to be stationed in the polling station where they have to vote.
They would most likely live in the area where they vote, and therefore would be familiar with the persons who are likely to be voting there. As such, if there is any attempt at impersonation, these polling agents can use their knowledge of the persons in their communities to pick out the fraudsters.
It therefore makes good sense for the various political parties to assign polling agents to the stations where these agents have to vote.
There is therefore no need for APNU to challenge the decision of GECOM not to issue the letters. In any event, the combined opposition never sought in the ninth parliament to introduce any legislative changes to allow for such letters to be issued by GECOM to polling agents.
The matter is settled, dead and buried. No need to resurrect it.
