The work of the Boundaries Commission may be moving at a snail’s pace, mainly because only 80,000 Bahamians have so far registered to vote.
Before every general election, Bahamians are accustomed to waiting until the final hour to register, but at this point, Parliamentary Commissioner, Errol Bethel, believes the number of registered voters to be far too low, and this could affect the work of the Boundaries Commission, which determines whether existing constituencies should remain the same or be altered.
“We probably need at least another 40,000 people registered at this time and I think their [the Boundaries Commission’s] concern now is that the number is too low,” said Mr Bethel, a special guest on the Immediate Response talk show with host, Anthony Newbold. “I don’t think they will set a figure [of the number of constituencies] until more people are registered.”
The first meeting of the Boundaries Commission was held two weeks ago, but individuals comprising the Commission have remained tight-lipped about any proposed changes they have in mind. Political pundits have speculated, however, that there would be significant changes in the Bain and Grants Town, and St Margaret constituencies. The Commission is being chaired by House Speaker, Oswald Ingraham and its members include, Bain and Grants Town MP, Bradley Roberts; Cat Island, Rum Cay and San Salvador MP, Philip Davis and Montagu MP, Brent Symonette.
Mr Bethel pointed out that according to the Constitution of The Bahamas, the Commission can devise 38 or more constituencies for a general election, and can set boundaries to either increase or decrease the size of an existing constituency. Once the House of Assembly is dissolved next year, the new boundaries would take effect.
“Once these new constituencies are created, we have to create them on paper and make sure that individuals are in the right constituency and in the right polling division, so there is a quite a lot of work to be done,” Mr Bethel explained.
According to the Parliamentary Commissioner, there should not be a great imbalance in the size of constituencies. He explained that the Commission couldn’t have 8,000 people in one constituency and 4,000 in another. “We have a difficulty with this in The Bahamas when it comes to certain Family Islands and in Grand Bahama,” he said “The numbers are basically the same, but when you come to the southeast Bahamas, for instance, then you have the MICAL constituency and the population there is just under 1200. This is a huge geographic area for an MP and the Commissioner has to decide if it should remain this way because of the size of this area or if it should change because of the geographic region.”
Also touching on the “strict” registration process that is implemented during the registration period, Mr Bethel claimed that some individuals, who are not citizens of The Bahamas, sometimes make an attempt to register. He also noted that even though some individuals are born in The Bahamas, they are still not eligible to vote.
The Parliamentary Commissioner also announced plans to establish an electronic registrar, which would eliminate hand-written voter cards. “We are investigating this right now but we are definitely not doing it for this exercise. As it now stands, after we write the cards by hand, the information is taken back into the office and recorded into a system.”
By: TAMARA MCKENZIE, The Nassau Guardian
