Social activist Loftus Durand has emphasized the need for the entire Dominican populace to have a say in deciding when and how overseas-based citizens can vote in Dominica’s elections. Durand made this demand in response to attorney Lennox Lawrence’s call for Dominicans based abroad to still vote in elections even after spending over five years overseas.
Dominica’s laws provide that any citizen who has been out of the country for a period exceeding five years will not be eligible to vote in local elections within the country. But speaking for the Skerrit-led administration, Lawrence is calling for Section 7, Part 2C of the Electors Act to be amended so that the limitation of five years can be extended to 10 years so that nationals based overseas can still vote in local elections when they have been absent from the country for a period not exceeding 10 years.
Lawrence insisted that the 5-year limitation should be expunged from the Electors Act or extended to 10 years. While Durand is not necessarily against the removal or amendment of the Electors Act to allow nationals who have been outside the country for up to 10 years to vote in the country’s elections, he noted that the DLP government should not be only entity to decide on the development, but to allow the entire Dominican populace to weigh in on the matter.
“What I would like to ask Lennox Lawrence or persons who are proposing that is, whether they got a consensus from the Dominican public by and large, and they are in agreement from the 5 years to the 10 years of being out of Dominica,” Durand stated. “If something like that was to be tabled, then the Dominican people, by consensus, should say okay, we are in agreement to that law.”
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