Former chairman of the Electoral Reform group, Anthony Leblanc, has suggested that a house-to-house re-verification of eligible voters in the country would be helpful for the cleansing of the voters register. The Dominica Business Forum (DBF) board of governors’ member and president of the Builders and Contractors Association of Dominica (BCAD) gave this suggestion during a video conference consultation with Sir Dennis Byron.
According to Leblanc, the house re-verification will go a long way to eliminating double voting and ensuring that voters are actually registered in a particular voting unit/polling station. He further noted that this exercise will help with issuing voter ID cards to eligible voters.
Noting that new voters faced the problem of identity verification during the last general election, Leblanc said a “registration reform” would eliminate this problem. He said election officials were not able to determine that a voter within a particular voting unit is not registered for voting in another constituency since this cannot be cross-checked without a voter ID during the registration process.
The BCAD president also averred that citizens who failed to vote in two consecutive general elections should be removed from the voters list. Although this would require an amendment to relevant laws and regulations, Leblanc said this provision would guarantee that every eligible voter participates in the voting process.
To guarantee the success of this process, he said the electoral commission must review data related to the last two general elections and then contact every voter to confirm they still live in their registered addresses. He said a voter must confirm they still live in a particular address or they have moved to either another address in another polling station or relocated out of the country.
He suggested that any voter that fails to respond to the residence verification should be deleted from the voters list. According to him, this exercise will ensure that non-registered citizens in the diaspora who have not returned to the country in the last five years do not remain on the voters register. And to protect the integrity of the secret ballot, he said mobile phones and calling outs should be prohibited on the election days.
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