The eligibility of seven people who have registered to vote in North Andros will be tested at a fraud hearing this Friday, Parliamentary Commissioner Errol Bethel told The Nassau Guardian yesterday.
The seven people represent a fraction of the 36 people Education Minister Desmond Bannister previously claimed registered illegally in that constituency.
Bannister, current MP for Carmichael and a native of North Andros, is the Free National Movement’s candidate for the area.
Bethel said the seven people will be called to testify before the constituency’s revising officer during a public hearing in Nicholl’s Town.
What happens to those registered voters after that depends on the revising officer’s ruling, he added.
“The hearing will be public in Nicholl’s Town. It should be at the courthouse. It’s just a hearing for him to be able to satisfy himself as to who should or shouldn’t be there. After the hearing, he should make a ruling,” Bethel said.
Bannister has also charged that Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) ‘operatives’ have been flying in out-of-town residents to North Andros, at no cost to them, to register to vote. Party Leader Perry Christie has denied this.
Yesterday, Dr. Perry Gomez, the candidate for North Andros and the Berry Islands, said he does not want to publicly get involved in the matter.
According to the law, any three registered voters in a constituency can object to the name of any other person on the voter’s register for that constituency, by delivering to the revising officer a notice of objection.
Upon receiving the notice, which discloses why the name of that other person should be removed from that part of the register, the revising officer shall as soon as practicable fix a day for hearing the objection, which shall be a day not later than 14 days after the day on which he received notice of objection.
Source: The Nassau Guardian
