'Large voter imbalances need to be addressed'

The following is the full text of the United Bermuda Party’s submission to the Boundaries Commission, which is required to periodically review the Island’s constituency boundaries to ensure “as far as reasonably practicable” that they contain equal numbers of voters. The Commission began its review last October and is expected to submit its report this February.

On behalf of the United Bermuda Party, I am pleased to submit our recommendations to the 2009 Boundaries Commission. We believe the Commission should have the benefit of broad input while carrying out its significant responsibilities to ensure that electoral boundaries are drawn as fairly as possible in Bermuda.

While the 2009 Boundaries Commission may not have as many issues to decide as the previous Commission in 2001/2, it nevertheless has the critical job of making sure that the sizes of the 36 individual constituencies are as equal as possible given the nature of Bermuda’s electoral system and the relatively small number of voters in our constituencies.

A. Imbalances between Constituencies and Narrow Margins in Earlier Elections

One only needs to look at the results in past general elections, particularly 2003 and 2007, to understand that many constituencies are won or lost by very narrow margins.

• 150 votes in six constituencies determined the outcome of the 2003 general election, and two constituencies were won/lost by only 8 votes.
  
• The 2003 general election results showed that 12 seats were won/lost by 109 votes or less, and that six of those seats were won/lost by 38 votes or less.
  
• The 2007 general election results showed that 10 seats were won/lost by 92 votes or less, and five of them by less than 50 votes.
  

The small number of votes that have historically determined outcomes in constituencies and elections make it imperative that the variance in size between constituencies is as small as possible in order to come as close as possible to the still unattained goal of “one man, one vote, each vote of equal value”.

Recent statistics from the Parliamentary Registrar’s Office indicate that 19 out of 36 – more than 50% of the individual constituencies – currently exceed the +/- 5% guidelines that were adopted by the previous Commission as an acceptable variance threshold. With an average constituency size of 1,149 voters based on the registered voting population of 41,399, the +/- 5% guideline works out to +/- 61 voters as the maximum allowable variance, even though many constituencies were won or lost on fewer votes. In fact, seven constituencies are now more than 10% over or under the average constituency size.

In broad terms, we note an overall deficit in the central parish constituencies – Pembroke and Devonshire – of approximately 1000 voters, while there is a surplus of some 600 voters in the East End when measured against the average constituency size. These large imbalances make an individual vote worth less in the East End than the central parishes – and this needs to be rectified. There are also smaller, but still material imbalances that need to be addressed in the West End.

1. We recommend that the +/- 5% guideline not be increased or exceeded and, where possible, the Commission should seek to keep the variance between individual constituencies well under this range.
   
   
2. We recommend that the large imbalances in the central parishes and the eastern section of the island, in particular, need to be addressed as they are currently making eastern parish votes less valuable than the others.
   
   

B. The Need for a Complete Re-Registration Exercise

We believe the Boundaries Commission will have to depend principally on the most recent Parliamentary Register to carry out its re-distribution mandate. The data from the 2000 Census is out of date and we seriously doubt that efforts to extrapolate forward from that date to the present are sufficiently accurate to use as the basis for determining the total number of eligible voters within individual constituencies. We understand that the estimate for total eligible voters extrapolated from the 2000 Census data to 2009 is actually lower than the total Parliamentary Registry list by more than 2,000 voters.

We continue to have serious concerns about the accuracy of the current Parliamentary Register, especially within individual constituencies.

Voters who live in one constituency but who are registered and vote in another can have just as critical an impact on the fairness of voting as discrepancies in the size of individual constituencies. The last full re-registration was completed over ten years ago in 1998. In the past, we have noted that up to 30-40% of voters in a constituency can actually move in the five years between elections. Unfortunately, many of those who move fail to register this change with the Parliamentary Registrar. There are probably a number of reasons for this failure, some of which we ascribe to deficiencies in the Parliamentary Election Act and insufficient powers held by the Parliamentary Registrar (described in Section C below). Some of our most recent findings that point to an inaccurate Register are as follows:

• During August 2009 and prior to the recent delivery changes in the Post Office, we sent out three separate mailings of more than 4,000 letters. These mailings used the most recent names and addresses of voters on the Parliamentary Register for constituencies #3, 4 and 30. We note that each of these constituencies is considered marginal and that all three have changed party representation in the last two elections. The results detailed in Table 1 below indicate that the Post Office returned more than 5% of the mail in these constituencies as undeliverable in spite of our use of the most recent names and addresses from the annual Register revision in June/July 2009. It should be noted that the total number of voters with returned mail in all three constituencies generally exceeded the number of votes by which the constituencies were won or lost in the last two general elections.

Table 1

• A random canvas of neighbourhoods in constituency # 12 (Devonshire South Central) totalling approximately 300 registered voters over a three month period (April/May/June) leading up to publication of the annual draft list on June 15th this year showed a total of 34 voters who were on the register but who no longer resided in the constituency. Some of those names had been drawn to the attention of the Parliamentary Registrar as long ago as the last general election. In effect, this is a 10 percent error ratio and one that we believe could be similar in other constituencies.

3. We recommend that a complete re-registration be carried out immediately by the Parliamentary Registrar. The results should be compared to the existing Register to improve accuracy and ensure that voters are correctly registered in the constituency in which they reside. A re-registration would also help to identify new voters who have been omitted from the current Register.

C. Necessary Changes to the Parliamentary Election Act

We believe the Act under which the Parliamentary Registrar operates is in serious need of repair. While we recognize that this may not be the remit of the Boundaries Commission, we have been recommended that The Parliamentary Election Act be reviewed and overhauled with a view to putting in place procedures and practices which will lead to a more accurate and reliable voting register. More specifically, we believe that:

• The system of scrutineers is simply not working, and it is unreasonable to think it will work based on experience to date.
• The Parliamentary Registrar should be compelled to investigate and act on “reasonable cause” – as used to be the case when Bermuda had a continuous, standing voting register. In the absence of such a provision, challenging whether a voter is properly registered in the correct constituency is unnecessarily difficult and ineffective.

The attached analysis in Appendix 1 details the Act’s shortcomings and deficiencies.

While not specifically within the remit of the Boundaries Commission, we strongly recommend the Parliamentary Election Act be reviewed and redrafted to include:

While not specifically within the remit of the Boundaries Commission, we strongly recommend the Parliamentary Election Act be reviewed and redrafted to include:

a. An independent Electoral Commission to provide oversight
b. The introduction of fixed term elections
c. Specific steps that the Parliamentary Registrar must take when a voter’s registration is questioned (as previously existed under Sec. 16 of the original 1978 Act – to investigate upon reasonable cause)

D. Parliamentary Register Issues Arising From the Last General Election

Although not strictly within the remit of the Boundaries Commission, we wish to draw the Commission’s attention to a number of issues that arose both before and after the 2007 General Election and which form part of the broader environment in which the Parliamentary Register must be viewed.

In essence, the examples summarized below illustrate the frustrations and futility faced by the Opposition in objecting to incorrectly registered voters, as well as the Government’s ability to shift significant numbers of voters into marginal constituencies immediately before an election and potentially influence the outcome. These and other examples cry out for an independent Electoral Commission to oversee elections and ensure the integrity of the Parliamentary Register.

Handling of Objections for Voters Incorrectly Registered – Prior to the 2007 General Election and at the request of the Parliamentary Registrar, objections were submitted to the Registrar’s office by United Bermuda Party scrutineers in a number of constituencies in accord with the Parliamentary Election Act.
To cite but one example in Constituency #4 – in the lead up to the December 2007 Election – an objection list of (104) voter’s names was submitted to the Parliamentary Registrar along with the $520 fee, detailing voters who were judged (by door to door canvassing) to be incorrectly registered in the Constituency. The list included voters who were deceased (8), had moved elsewhere in Bermuda (70) and those who were living abroad (26). To date, there has been no official reply to the submission by the Registrar’s office as to the status of the objection list, despite a formal follow-up letter by a member of the UBP St. Georges South Branch office in July 2008.

In 2007, the Scrutineer observed that 15 of the 104 voters in question were actually removed by the Registrar’s office, including all 8 voters who had been objected to as “deceased.” In 2008, a further 3 voters were removed from the Register for Constituency #4, and in 2009 a further 19 names on the original objection list were removed by the Registrar’s office. However, 66 names that were originally objected to in 2007 and which the Scrutineer believes are still incorrectly registered in #4 remain on the Register for that constituency.

Emergency Housing – Movement of Voters – In the lead up to the 2007 general election, Government moved a significant number of emergency housing tenants into two very marginal constituencies, Southampton East Central (#30) and St David’s (#3) – both of which had been won/lost by less than 30 votes in the 2003 election. In #30 the closed Wyndham/Sonesta Beach Hotel staff housing quarters were used as a temporary housing facility, while in #3, the Tommy Fox Road units and the Gulfstream former military facility were selected. In November of 2007 – roughly one month before the election – the Government moved approximately 60 to 70 voters from the Wyndham/Sonesta staff housing facility to the Gulfstream/Tommy Fox Road facilities. Government restricted access to the Gulfstream facility by the United Bermuda Party MP at the time. A number of these emergency housing tenants re-registered in #3 just prior to the election, while some 30 to 40 were still registered in #30 on Election Day.
How the emergency housing voters cast their votes is obviously unknown, but there is no doubt that this large movement of voters just before the election would have had an impact on both marginal constituencies. It also points to the ability of any government to shift voters and demonstrates the clear potential for government manipulation and voting fraud. What is clear is that Constituencies #3 and # 30 changed from UBP to PLP seats.

We believe that this type of situation is yet another strong argument for creating an independent Electoral Commission. An Electoral Commission could examine the circumstances and determine the fairest way to handle last-minute residential shifts, ensuring fairness for all voters and political parties.

While some of our serious concerns about the Parliamentary Election Act and the integrity of the Register are beyond your remit as a Commission, we hope that you will find our submission to be helpful and trust that you will give our recommendations your favourable consideration. In conclusion, we would like to reiterate our strong belief that a complete re-registration should be carried out to ensure the fair and accurate rebalancing of the constituencies by the Commission.

Respectfully submitted,

H. Kim Swan, JP, MP

Leader of the United Bermuda Party

 

Appendix 1

 

The voting register is not as accurate as it could be - and should be – and, further, the legislation under which it operates needs serious overhaul and repair .

This paper seeks to explain why this is the case.

The current register has been in place since the general election of November 1998 and since the abolition of an annual registration shortly thereafter. Prior to the 1998 election, eligible voters were required by law to re-register in February of each year.

The Parliamentary Election Act 1978 (“the Act”) which provided for annual registration was not repealed but rather amended to do away with complete annual voter re-registration and to put in its place a standing register (“the 1999 amendments”).

This approach - as it turned out - had its flaws as the Act was previously predicated on and assumed an annual registration.

The 1999 amendments placed the onus on the voter to ensure that he or she is properly registered: s.10 of the Act. There was also the requirement on voters to advise the Parliamentary Registrar (“the Registrar”) of subsequent changes in registration, in particular and just as importantly, in those instances where a voter has moved his or her place of residence from one constituency to another: s.10A. No punishment was prescribed for failing to do so.

The 1999 amendments also provided for a system of annual maintenance by the publication of an updated register by the Registrar : s.9. This system assumes that the Registrar will be assisted by scrutineers who are also provided for under the Act: s.14.

Section 14 reads as follows: -

“14 (1) For the purpose of assisting the Registrar in preparing the parliamentary registers there shall be appointed annually for each constituency two scrutineers, who shall be persons registered as electors in that constituency and who shall not be members of either House of the Legislature or public officers.

(2) Every scrutineer appointed under this section shall be so appointed by the Governor acting upon the recommendation of the Premier in respect of one such scrutineer for each constituency and upon the recommendation of the Opposition Leader in respect of the other such scrutineer.

(3) It shall be the duty of the two scrutineers to examine the register of the constituency for which they are appointed, to consult together in order to advise the Registrar as to any alteration which ought in their opinion to be made in order to ensure its accuracy and in particular in order to remove therefrom the names of any persons who have died, who have ceased to be ordinarily resident in Bermuda, who are disqualified by reason of serving a term of imprisonment or who have ceased to be ordinarily resident in the constituency for which they are registered as electors.

(4) If the scrutineers are unable to agree on the advice they shall give to the Registrar then they shall each advise him separately.

(5) If for any reason only one scrutineer advises him, then the Registrar shall consider that advice.

(6) On receipt of advice from the scrutineers the Registrar may in his discretion amend the Parliamentary register.

(7) If for any reason the Registrar receives no advice from scrutineers then he shall act without such advice.”

 

Scrutineers and the role they are expected to fulfil under the Act is a critical component in the maintenance of an accurate register. However, the fact is that this where the system – and maintenance of an accurate voting register – falls down in large part.

It would be instructive for the Commission to find out from the Registrar just how well this system has been working. The prevailing view is that these scrutineers (assuming that all of them are appointed – and we do not believe that this is even the case) have not been working at all, much less working together. This is due in part to the nature and extent of the work required to be undertaken, and the compensation for the work performed. There is also always the added problem of motivating what are essentially volunteer workers in non-election years. Our view based on experience to date is that it is not only impractical but unreasonable and unrealistic to expect volunteers to undertake the work scrutineers are expected to perform under the Act – and their failure to produce to date is proof positive of this.

Historical context helps explain the role scrutineers were expected to play. The appointment of scrutineers was introduced with passage of the then entirely new Parliamentary Election Act 1978. At that time there was a continuous, standing register in place - as there is today.

However – and this is an important, however – notwithstanding the appointment of scrutineers, this same legislation placed an additional duty on the Registrar to maintain a true and accurate register with express and clear powers on how to meet that duty. The relevant section read as follows: -

“16. (1) It shall be the duty of the Registrar to cause the several parliamentary registers to be kept under continuous review and to make such alterations therein as may be required to maintain a true and complete record of the persons entitled to be registered therein. Copies of such registers shall be prepared and made available for inspection by the public.

(2) If at any time the Registrar has reasonable cause to believe that any person whose name is included in any parliamentary register is not entitled to be so registered he may send a notice in the prescribed form to that person at the address shown opposite to his name in that register stating that his name will be removed from the register unless within thirty days of the posting thereof objection is made to the Registrar to the proposed removal:

Provided that it shall not be necessary for the Registrar to send notice to any person who applies in person to have his name removed from a register nor in the case of any person whom the Registrar is satisfied has died, but in any such case the Registrar may forthwith exercise his powers under subsection (3) as if the notice had been sent.

(3) If any person to whom a notice has been sent under subsection (2) within thirty days of the posting of the notice satisfies the Registrar of his entitlement to be registered in the parliamentary register in which his name appears, the Registrar shall take no further action in the matter but in any other case he shall, upon the expiration of that period, forthwith remove the name of that person from that parliamentary register and the general register.

(4) Every notice under the provisions of this section shall be sent by prepared registered post and copies of it shall be sent to the scrutineers appointed under section 15 for the constituency concerned.

(5) The Registrar-General shall as soon as practicable after the beginning of each month or at such times as are arranged with the Registrar forward to the Registrar a list of names, addresses and sexes and the dates of death of all persons of the age of twenty-one years and upwards whose deaths have been registered during the previous month.”

It is important to note that this provision put in place a clear statutory system whereby the Registrar could on “reasonable cause” investigate and remove from the register the name of any voter whom the Registrar considered was improperly and/or incorrectly registered in a constituency; and this was in addition to the role scrutineers were expected to play under section 15 of the Act as it then was. That section differed little from how it reads today and was as follows: -

“15. (1) For the purposes of assisting the Registrar to maintain the accuracy of the parliamentary registers there shall be appointed annually for each constituency two scrutineers, who shall be persons registered as electors in that constituency and who shall not be members of either House of the Legislature or public officers.

(2) Every scrutineer appointed under this section shall be so appointed by the Governor acting upon the recommendation of the Premier in respect of one such scrutineer for each constituency and upon the recommendation of the Opposition Leader in respect of the other scrutineer.

(3) It shall be the duty of the two scrutineers to examine the parliamentary register and the constituency for which they are appointed, to consult together in order to advise the Registrar as to any alteration which ought in their opinion to be made in order to maintain the accuracy thereof and in particular in order to remove therefrom the names of any persons who have died, who have ceased to be ordinarily resident in Bermuda, who are disqualified by reason of serving a term of imprisonment or who have ceased to be ordinarily resident in the constituency for which they are registered as electors.

(4) If the scrutineers are unable to agree on the advice they shall give to the Registrar then they shall each advise him separately.

(5) If for any reason only one scrutineer advises him, then the Registrar shall consider that advice.

(6) On receipt of advice from the scrutineers the Registrar may in his discretion amend the parliamentary register and subsection (2) of section 16 shall then apply.

(7) If for any reason the Registrar receives no advice from scrutineers then he shall act without advice.”

 

The above duty of the Registrar – along with the other provisions of section 16 – was dropped when the Act was amended in 1979 and annual voter re-registration was introduced. The Registrar then had to concentrate each year on registering and re-registering eligible voters – and was given the necessary powers to do so – and while scrutineers and the role they were to play remained in place, it could fairly be argued that the scope of their work was dramatically reduced by annual voter registration drives.

When Bermuda reverted to a continuous, standing register with the 1999 amendments, and did away with annual registration drives, the separate, additional duty of the Registrar as originally established and set out in section 16 of the original 1978 Act, was not revived. It ought to have been so revived so as to give the Registrar the necessary tools and powers to maintain an accurate register in addition to the work to be undertaken (or not) by political party appointees i.e. the scrutineers.

Our experience is that there is a fairly significant turn-over of voters from constituency to constituency as they move from one residence to another. For example one of our Members of Parliament, who canvasses his constituency on a consistent and regular basis, and did so over a three month basis earlier this year prior to publication of a revised draft list in June, was able to give to the Registrar the names of 34 people who were shown as registered but no longer living in the constituency. The number constituted approximately 10 per cent of the approximate 300 registered voters for those neighbourhoods which the MP canvassed.

Section 14 (3) of the Act enumerates the grounds on which a voter’s registration can be questioned – and subsequently challenged – and one of those reasons is that the voter no longer lives in the constituency in which he or she is shown as registered. Section 14 also goes on to provide that the Registrar can act upon the advice of the scrutineers and “may in his discretion amend the parliamentary register”. Further, in sub-section (7): “If for any reason the Registrar receives no advice from scrutineers then he shall act without such advice”.

But there is no express provision on how the Registrar should act in such circumstances and the procedure he should follow – as there was under the original Act.

In trying to encourage proper registration, the Registrar has endeavoured to engender interest and action in two visible ways: (1) publicity campaigns and voter registration drives from time to time to encourage eligible voters to register or re-register where appropriate; and (2) publication in the newspapers of the names of people whom he has reason to be believe are incorrectly and/or improperly registered. Incidentally, the numbers of names which have been published by the Registrar in recent years – prior to the last general election and more recently – will help give the Commission some idea of the extent of the problem.

We do not know what, if anything, happens following publication of the names, e.g. publication of those whose names have been removed as a result, and there is no guidance in the Act or elsewhere as to how the Registrar should (or should not) proceed.

There is however, a clear statutorily prescribed scheme to challenge the accuracy of the voters list and that is by way of formal objection: (a) following publication of a draft list each year on June 15th; and (b) for a limited period after an election is called.

It might be instructive to know from The Registrar how many challenges have been made over the years under opportunity (a) and under opportunity (b) – and their outcomes. There is a cost of $5.00 per challenge and I do not know to what extent, if any, this has been a factor; although the Registrar’s Office will of course have a record of challenges and any refunds for successful challenges.

However, there are also some very real challenges with exercising the right of challenge under opportunity (b) once an election has been called. First, the Act provides eligible voters with up to a week to either register or re-register in the correct constituency as the case may be. Secondly, the Registrar’s Office is busy preparing for polls in 36 constituencies and the preparation of lists for each one. Thirdly, parties and their candidates are pre-occupied with canvassing and their respective campaigns. The last thing a candidate may wish to do in any event is challenge a registered voter who may end up voting in that district. The time frames under the Act for lodging objections, for giving notice and for hearing objections (which includes a right of appeal to the Supreme Court) are also difficult, if not impossible to meet within the election time frame from issue of writ to polling day.

There are difficulties as well under the Act with respect to the bases upon which claims and objections may be made. The two that cause the greatest consternation are whether (i) the voter is ordinarily resident in Bermuda or not, and (ii) the voter is ordinarily resident in the constituency for which they are registered as electors

The Act provides guidance on what constitutes resident and ordinarily resident: s. 2.

“For the purposes of this Act, the place where a person is ordinarily resident shall be taken to be the place where he is resident unless he satisfies the Registrar that he is ordinarily resident in some other place”. [s.2(1)]

With this further qualification: -

“A person shall not be deemed to have changed his place of residence by reason only of his absence from Bermuda for a period of not more than six months if he intends to continue to reside in Bermuda”: [ s.2(5)]

Once again, historical context helps explain how and why these definitions came about.

It was in 1979 that voter registration became an annual event. Eligible voters had to re-register each year to secure their vote. In that context, the six month residency requirement probably seemed reasonable as voters had to be living in Bermuda during the re-registration period (January/February) to secure registration.

Dropped from the 1978 Act however, was the following qualification which previously existed in The Parliamentary Act 1963, which Act provided for a continuous, standing register, namely that: -

“For the purposes of this Act, ordinary residence in these Islands or in an electoral district shall not be deemed to be broken by reason only of any temporary absence therefrom for business, recreational, health, educational, emergency or compassionate purposes”. [ s.1.(6) of the 1963 Act]

The 1963 Act was amended in 1968 (with the adoption of the Bermuda Constitution Order 1968 and the introduction of universal adult suffrage) and inter alia the following further qualifications were introduced: -

“A person shall not be entitled to vote at a parliamentary election in any electoral district if –

(b) he has ceased to be ordinarily resident in that electoral district for a period of one year or longer;

(c) he has ceased to be ordinarily resident in these Islands.”

[ s.5(2) The Parliamentary Election Act, 1963, Amendment Act, 1968]

In 1978 an entire new Act was introduced – the one under which we now operate, as amended. The definitions of “resident and ordinarily resident” referred to above were a part of the original 1978 Act and have not been changed since. The 1968 amendments also referred to above were changed by the 1978 Act to read as follows:

“Notwithstanding that a person may be registered in the parliamentary register of a constituency, he is not entitled to vote at a parliamentary election in that constituency if, on polling day –

(b) he has ceased to be ordinarily resident in that constituency for a period exceeding three months; or

(c) he has ceased to be ordinarily resident in Bermuda;”

[ s.4(2) of The Parliamentary Act 1978]

It was also the original 1978 Act which provided for the appointment of scrutineers to advise the Registrar who in turn would have the power to remove from the voting list the names of person who inter alia “have ceased to be ordinarily resident in Bermuda” or “who have ceased to be ordinarily resident in the constituency for which they are registered as electors”. [ s.14(3) of the Act]

Those grounds for removal make perfect sense when compared with the then section 4(2) requirements for entitlement to vote referred to above.

However, readers will also recall that the 1979 amendments shortly followed and with them came the introduction of annual registration. The 1979 amendments also saw the repeal of section 4(2) (b) above, namely the explicit requirement that a person not be entitled to vote in the constituency in which he is registered if on polling day he has ceased to be resident in that constituency for a period exceeding three months.

The abolition of that requirement was likely acceptable for two reasons: (1) because there was still the six month residency requirement as set out in s.2(5); and (2) because there was a complete re-registration of eligible voters in January/February each year. The latter in particular mitigated against anyone being incorrectly registered for more than a year.

There does remain the power in the Act for the Registrar to “remove ... the names of any persons … who have ceased to be ordinarily resident in the constituency for which they are registered”: s. 14(3). This power to remove is expressed within the context of the scrutineers and the system under which they are supposed to work “in preparing ... the register … annually”.

However, neither the Act ( or any regulations made thereunder) provide any guidance as to what sort of evidence and/or proof the Registrar will require - or compel him to act - in determining whether or not a person is or is not resident in the constituency in which he is shown as registered. This is a critical omission.

Further, that section of the Act which gives the Registrar the power to “make corrections to draft registers” states only that:

“The Registrar shall make alterations to the parliamentary register – (a) to carry out a decision with respect to any claim or objection; (aa) to record changes in the registered particulars of an elector of which notice has been given under section 10A; (b) to correct any clerical error or omission; (c) to correct any misnomer, inaccurate description or erroneous entry.” [s.20 of the Act]

 

There is no reference in that section to a power to make corrections on specific, express grounds, like, for example, on the ground of ceasing to be ordinarily resident in a constituency in which the voter is registered. It may be however, that any such complaint or concern about a voter’s residency is expected to come forward as either a claim or objection. It is wrong in our view to have the duty and power of the Registrar so circumscribed and limited.

An obvious and desirable cure is to give back to the Registrar the duty and powers the office previously enjoyed under s.16 of the original Act.

A further and perhaps greater challenge arises after the draft lists are finalised on or about July 16th each year, that is after the period for objection has passed and/or where an election has been called. It is arguable in my view that it is no longer possible under the Act after July 16th to challenge a voter’s registration on the grounds that the voter either does not reside or is not ordinarily resident in the district for which he is registered. The position may be taken that that once a person’s name is on the list, and went unchallenged in the review and objection period, after June 16th and before July 16th, that voter can neither be challenged or struck off the register until the next preparation period. The Act needs to be improved and amended to address this point conclusively. A person ought not to be able to register and remain registered in a constituency where they not ordinarily reside, and such persons should be open to challenge at appropriate times, most especially in the period leading up to an election. Moreover, the Registrar should be empowered to act where complaint is made, or on his own volition, and without the need first for “advice” from one or both scrutineers or for formal objection.

It is critical that voters not be able to vote where they do not live, most especially in marginal districts where elections have been won or lost by as few as eight votes since the introduction of single seat constituencies and the 1999 amendments. The 2007 election results also showed that ten (10) seats were won (or lost) by 92 votes or fewer, five of them by less than 50 votes and a sixth by 57 votes.

There also remains the matter of the six month residency requirement as expressed in s.2(5) of the Act. It is absolute in that there is no latitude in the provision – or elsewhere in the Act – for voters who may be off the island for longer than six months, but nonetheless only temporarily, for example for further education or employment purposes, but whose home is still Bermuda. There ought to be an express provision for such registered voters similar perhaps to that which was there in the 1963 Act referred to above.