And when the elections do come around, what about those voters who transferred to Cayo North but were challenged by the UDP mayor and standard bearer? While the status of those who are appealing remain in limbo until a judgement is given by the court, Usher says that if it is not done before elections are called, then they will automatically remain on the Cayo North list. Here's how he explained it.
Henry Charles Usher, Chairman, PUP
"Well this is not the first time that persons have been struck off of a list, we had successful challenges to voters on a number of occasions throughout the history of Belize and really this one has only gotten more media attention because of the public pronouncements and because of the accusations being levied but I really believe that it is an exercise that's found in the legislation, you can challenge a person's residence but really, the election and boundaries office is the one that goes out and does the termination of a transfer or to the registering of the voter and they carry out their duties very efficiently and I think what he was suggesting is something that the court listened to the evidence and made a pronouncement on. Those persons that were challenged, it wasn't all that was struck off, but those persons that were struck off, they are the ones that are actually appealing it to the high court. While they appeal it, if the elections are called before the appeal is heard, they remain on that list, on the new list where they were transferred to. So they remain on the Cayo North list until the appeal is heard. If there's an election they would vote in Cayo North. Now the appeal then determines their eligibility to be transferred or for their voter role to be transferred to Cayo North. Really, what you don't want to do is to disenfranchise any voters so you want to have some kind of stability and some kind of understanding as to how the court will decide. What I found disappointing from the magistrate was that in terms of a previous challenge, she refused to make a decision. Now the legislation says very clearly that you have to make a decision by the fifth of the following month. So challenges happening at the end of this month and then the fifth of the following month the magistrate would have to make a decision by the fifth. The fifth came, the sixth, the seventh, eighth, all the way down to eleventh and the magistrate did not make a decision. And I think that is really disenfranchising voters, causing uncertainty in the system and really like what the Chief Elections Officer has said recently, they need to prepare heir roles in the event that an election is called they need to know that these roles are ready, they need to know where voters will be and what type of resources to deploy so there's a lot of issues there that the high court will be looking at but while that appeal is going on they remain on the list that they transferred to."
We note that his interpretation will likely be the subject of dispute between the political parties.
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