Voter registration fraud - it's a practice as old as the PUDP - and both parties have turned this dark art of politics into a science.
But, every game has rules - even the dirty ones. And Cayo North's Omar Figueroa is crying foul tonight because he says the registration officer even stopped putting the street number of the safe houses where scores of voters agreed to appear.
Figueroa says that of 283 voters registered in the most recent transfer period at least 100 are suspect.
The problem is his team can't even get the house numbers to determine where the voters are registered.
He told us more today:
Omar Figueroa, UDP Cayo North Std. Bearer
"You go now into the transfer period for July and August and we started to notice the same thing happening again. We meet with the registering officer, we write to the chief elections officer and no one really cares, no one is interested in trying to address the problem."
"So we are left with our options pretty much limited. We're writing the governor general, we're copying the OAS, we're copying all those organizations that come on election day to monitor election because it's futile to come on election day and monitor election when the fraud is taking place in July and August."
"The registering officer is somehow keeping all this information close to her. Like how can the residents of Cayo North get an opportunity to review the list and object when you're telling me you registered 28 persons on Stanton Street."
"Now there may be far to 50 houses on Stanton Street. When we go and ask, listen, give us some information, give us the house so that we can conduct our investigation. You know, this is important and there's a refusal."
"It cannot be that Benque Viejo Road, for example, I was born and raised on Benque Viejo Road. My parents lived there. I know the people on Benque Viejo Road. And then suddenly you see far to 50 names showing up on Benque Viejo Road and each house has a number."
"I live on, I grew up on 52 Benque Viejo Road. Every house has a number there. Yet the registering officer refuses to give these people an accurate address so that we can better do our investigations."
Figueroa did make some progress in the San Ignacio magistrate's court today. The magistrate instructed elections and boundaries to provide them with the investigation sheets used to verify the registrations. The case was adjourned until Friday.
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