Yesterday, the Elections and Boundaries Department sent out a press release informing the general public that in the first week of voter re-registration, from July 2 to July 7, sixteen thousand, six hundred and seventy applications were accepted.
It's not a bad start, but the last voters list had more than 200,000 registered voters - and they expect to reach near to that mark again. The Re-registration exercise lasts for 8 weeks - so that would only amount to 135 thousand new voters at the end of the exercise.
That would be a shortfall - but not the end of the world since registration would be continuous,. But, one politician who is concerned that people aren't showing up in sufficient numbers, is UDP's Darrell Bradley. He has been walking the Caribbean Shores division hoping to convince voters to and re-register, and what he has been finding is that people there aren't cuing up in the numbers that are ideal.
He called us this evening to make a pitch to all the voters countrywide to take this exercise seriously. Here's what he had to say about his belief in the importance of this exercise:
Darrell Bradley, UDP Caretaker - Caribbean Shores
"It is surprising to me that in our walking throughout the Caribbean Shores areas quite a few people have indicated to us that they were not aware of this exercise being ongoing, that people had to re-register. You also have quite a bit of people who for whatever reason not follow the various social media outlets and so forth. It's incumbent on the media, on political parties, on individuals seeking elected office on every individual in the society really to as much as possible raise awareness of the importance of voting and importance of individuals really going out there and registering themselves so that they are entitle to vote. So for what it is worth I am giving a personal pitch for people in all constituencies throughout Belize and for whatever political party you are supporting or even if you are somebody who is that much not that much into political parties, that we want your voice to be heard and we are encouraging you to take the effort and to go out and to register. The process is very easy, very simple. I have had the situation of having my father re-registering over the past weekend. It only took him about 15 minutes to do so. We are of course registered in the Freetown area of Belize City and in terms of it not being long lines to wait and so forth, I think the government has done all that it can to make the process very simple and very easy. But I think it is a responsibility of individuals just to make sure that it counts and make sure that your voice matters. So that you are able to be counted in the next general election."
Bradley told us that his divisional office is opened, and staff is happy to offer assistance to the voters of Caribbean Shores.
Email
Print