Noted educator and historian, the 89 year old J. Alexander Bennet will not be able to vote in the April 10th referendum. The cutoff date for registration passed earlier this week - and after months of being unable to find his records at the Vital Stats unit - the news his family did get was not good - and they chose not to re-register him. Here’s why:…
Jules Vasquez "Will J. Alexander Bennet be able to vote in the referendum?"
Hilly Bennet - J. Alexander's Son "Unfortunately he won't. He was given, I would say an ultimatum, you get the easy thing done or you get the hard thing done right? The easy one was they wanted him to be registered under Joseph Alejandro Bennet. He would have been able to vote directly to the elections and boundaries commission and get registered under that name, you know. In 1978 when the photo ID was first introduced his ID and I gave that as evidence, was Joseph Alexander Bennet. All his certificates from UWI, from London, his Social Security, his passport is under Joseph Alexander Bennet and I think the long route would have been to get a deed poll and get a document for Joseph Alexander Bennet. So the bottom line is he won't be voting in the ICJ Referrendum."
Jules Vasquez "Okay, so from where did the Alejandro originate?"
Hilly Bennet "Well truthfully, somebody originally, not his mother, had got a birth certificate under Alejandro Bennet."
Jules Vasquez "Ultimately he wants to vote. Would it have been too much to have a consension to accept the Alejandro that is on his birth certificate?"
Hilly Bennet "Well actually, we thought about it but on the side of caution we were worried more about other things that would affect him you know? Banking, his Social Security, what would happen in the process that we do that you know. So, eventually we said we won't."
The family was told his records at the vial stats unit had been torn out of the ledger.
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